M13: July 9, 2010

[seal killer]

All--

M13, The Great Cluster in Hercules, is my first globular cluster and my first image with three minute sub-exposures. I am more happy with the latter than the former!

I realize it is a rank-newbie image. Given that, I am still undecided about it. I don't like the images in either Stellarium or World Wide Telescope, either. (Ha! I like MINE better, poor as it is!)

The stars do not look crisp, to me. I focused with my Bahtinov mask but as I re-look at one of the images, I see it was captured at 4am. The dew was horrible. I bet that is the problem(?).

As I mentioned in another image I posted, this one does not include darks because I was busy gathering photons.

Date: 07/09/10
Name: M13 (NGC 6205 - Great Cluster In Hercules)
Camera: Nikon D700, prime focus
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Telescope: AT8IN
Exposures . . .
4 - 180 seconds at ISO 400
3 - 180 seconds at ISO 800
0 Darks

Captured with ImagesPlus Camera Control.
Processed with ImagesPlus Processing; stretched and curves and Nikon NX2; cropped, contrast and brightness, black point.

--Bill

[alsetalokin]

Ahh...pretty. It's like seeing an old friend...a bit bedraggled but still in good shape...after a long journey.

M13 was the first Messier object I imaged, along with M5. I feel like I know it intimately and could find my way around its chains of stars in my sleep.

Here's a thought...have you tried sharpening the individual exposures, before stacking? A little unsharp mask might help round up the stars, then stacking, and the tiny bit of out-of-registration might actually give a bit of "3-d" effect to the glob.

It's a great feeling, isn't it, when your shot looks better than the stock shots in the planetarium...I've got a couple like that, I wonder if Meade made their images of the Messier objects like that on purpose, to encourage duffers like me...

More globs, please !!