Backing up and re-focusing on some basics has paid off. I’m quite pleased with this first result on M27. This is 4 hours of data over about 2 weeks, 1 hour each of LRGB, with RGB binned 2×2. QSI 583 camera on an AT8RC, autoguided with a Lodestar, on a G11.
What I did differently to make this result better than previous ones:
- Better autoguider and more attention to guider settings
- One colour per session, taking time and not rushing
- Focused for each filter
- Flats for each filter, immediately after the data gathering, so filters are certain to be in exactly the same spot
- Normalized & stacked with CCDStack, basic processing in Maxim, more processing in Photoshop.
The problem is, this is quite addictive. Now I want more data – several more hours of each, and I can see never being satisfied. More data to follow when the clouds leave.