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M1 and M42 with the Mallincam Xtreme X2


Magellan Boy

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Last Thursday night (9th January 2014) I turned my Mallincam Xtreme  on both The Crab Nebula and the Great Orion Nebula. I used my 10" LX200 ACF with an f/5 focal reducer (Mallincam's own MFR5). There was no guiding, and no dark frames were used. Tracking is much better than last time as I now have my mount accurately polar aligned using the drift method.


 


The Crab Nebula uses a stack of 3 frames of 60s each with the AGC (amplifier gain) set to 5. The images were stacked and processed in Nebulosity v3 using the levels/power stretch function and a little bit of noise reduction. Amp glow is very evident in the top left corner and there is still some noise and hot pixels. My next step is to capture some dark frames to remove the hot pixels and amp glow.


M1_MCX_AGC5_NOHIST_3x60S_090114StackCrop


 


 


Here is the live image of The Crab as seen on screen during capture (a 60s 'hyper mode' exposure):


M1_MCX_AGC5_60S_NOHIST_090114_9.jpg


 


 


The image of M42 is a single frame using a 10s exposure and AGC of 4 and no processing at all! It is what was seen on the screen live during capture.


M42_MCX_AGC4_10S_090114_3.jpg


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Thanks Pete. Its really quite amazing how quickly these cameras can build up an image on screen, and not having to spend lots of time post processing. Suits me as I'm mainly a visual deep sky observer but would still like the ability to pull in detail not normally visible at the eyepiece or view objects not normally visible at all!


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I've never 'bagged' M1 yet from my light polluted back yard.

I remember seeing it from Brailsford last year through the 10inch.

Nice detail & colours in your image....

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Its something i need to try, i think.


I only have one filter : a Baader moon 1.25"


I'll see if theres anything at Astrofest.


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  • 5 weeks later...

I've further processed the image of the Crab Nebula in Photoshop Elements using Noel Carboni’s Astronomy Tools to reduce some of the amp glow in the top left corner, reduce overall noise and darken the space background.


M1_090114_Lancaster.jpg


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Love the live view image.


I still have my Samsung tucked away in the draw here.


Must get it up and running again. :)


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