M33, Delamont Oct 1, 2016

[Ciarán]

I've had a few people ask me to post this, as I know not everyone uses the Facebook group, so here is my picture of M33 taken out at Delamont on the night of Sat, Oct 1, 2016.

The link should hopefully contain the details of all the equipment and software used, but to sum up, this is 19 images of 6 mins exposure each. Taken with a Nikon D5300 DSLR through an 80mm scope, and guided using a 9x50 finderscope and an old QHY5 guide camera. The whole thing sat on top of an HEQ5 Pro mount. I also calibrated it with Bias and Flat frames as well.

Polar alignment was good, but the guiding was still off (need to work on getting just the right amount of imbalance for next time) but thankfully it didn't seem to affect things too much. I also need to have another go at processing it. This was just a rough v1 process. I'm not happy with the colours myself, so if/when I update it i'll be sure to post the new version here as well.

Cheers,

Ciaran.

[Ciarán]

Finally got around to processing this properly, here is the final version:
M33 v2.2 Close-Up by ciaranodonnell2000, on Flickr

Fixed the colours (now everything isn't just blue!), also managed the stars much better this time, and the background is much cleaner too.

The above is actually a Centre Crop from a x2 Enlargement in Photoshop.
Here is the original widefield version:
M33 v2.2 by ciaranodonnell2000, on Flickr

[Doaksey]

Really good Ciaran. Really worth the effort

[Ciarán]

Decided to have another go at processing this, as in hindsight i think the original was too heavily cropped, plus i think i took a few too many liberties with the colour scheme. The new version is now much sharper and has a more natural tone:

M33 v3 by ciaranodonnell2000, on Flickr

[belfastbiker]

Utter beginner here, I'm gobsmacked, lovely stuff.