I got my new ML8300 a couple of weeks ago but as usual the purchase of new astronomical equipment seemed to coincide with a sudden and prolongued increase in cloudy weather (I'm thinking of calling this "Haynes Law"). Anyway, I managed to get out on Sunday night and do 4 hours of data on IC59 in 30 minute sub frames before thin cloud interupted the session just after I did a meridian flip.
It was taken with my FSQ106ED at f5 on a Paramount ME with autoguiding done by a Lodestar and OAG using dithering with a 5nm Ha filter.
I was also committing the terrible sin of trying out new software as well as I have upgraded my Maxim DL to version 5 and Photoshop to CS5. I have to admit, that although Maxim DL v5 is a better program and more up to date, I don't care much for the user interface and found the old one much easier to use. That being said everything went without a hitch.
I shot all the dark frames the previous week indoors with the camera cooled to -35c which it had no problem doing (less than 5 minutes to cool)
All the dark frames and light frames were shot with RBI annihilator set to 2 seconds/2 flushes. The flats and corresponding darks had no RBI tool used.
The processing was fairly simple as it only involved levels and curves ( several iterations of 'S' shaped contrast curves)and some selective contrast adjustments, no sharpening, gradient removal or noise reduction was used.
The ML8300 that I purchased from FLI has no cover slip which slightly increases the sensitivity and also helps reduce reflections further
This is the first time I have imaged this nebula properly and it is dim, I may add some RGB to it later as it doesn't respond very well to OIII and SII as far as I am aware.
There is a full size high resolution version at the following link
http://www.pbase.com/image/138236043/original
Thanks for looking
Best wishes
Gordon
