M51 Galaxy

Date: 3/17/2006

Location: Bair Valley, California

Conditions: seeing 3/10, transparency 5/10, temperature 65-56 F, wind 10 - 35 mph gust with some moisture.

Telescope: Astro Physics 160mm refractor, 1200mm focal length, F7.5, prime focus, no diagonal, owned by friend Jose Magsaysay. Mount: Astro Physics AP1200GTO owned by friend Jose Magsaysay.

Camera: Canon DSLR 20da noise reduction off owned by friend Jose Magsaysay.

Focusing: Manual on star using remote 6" battery powered monitor.

Exposures: (8) 4 min raw 800 ISO, 6 bias, 9 flats using light box, not darks.

Processing: Using IP 2.75 - converted raw to FITS, bias & flat frame calibrated, align-rotate-scale, median exclusion combine , digital development, convert to 16 bit TIFF, PS CS , levels, curves, color saturation, used Noel Carboni's software tools to reduce star size and increase galaxy brightness, unsharp mask, converted to JPEG for web.

Comments: Very windy night with bad seeing and heavy wind causing big stars. The polar alignment needed improvement. We took dark frames but I some how lost them on my computer so they were not used for calibration. This 20da camera doesn't seem to have much noise at this ISO and 4 minute exposure. The flats I stretched taking a look them and they definitely removed some dust and dirt spots on the OTA.

Date: 6/11/2006

Location: Bryce Canyon

Conditions: 97% full moon, seeing 8/10, transparency 8/10, temperature 65-46 F.

Telescope:Televue 85mm refractor, 600mm focal length, F7, prime focus, no diagonal. Mount: Losmandy G11, Gemini goto, polar scope used to align,.

Camera: Canon Rebel 300d

Focusing: Manual on star using right angle Canon 2.5 magnifying view finder.

Exposures: (2) 3 min raw 800 ISO

Processing: IP 2.75 - converted raw to FITS, dark frame calibrated, align-rotate, combine average,. digital development, convert to 16 bit TIFF, PS CS , levels, color saturation, cropped, sharpen edges, unsharp mask, converted to JPEG.

Comments: