Thanks to everyone for all the nice feedback. It takes a lot of effort to get the raw data in winter time. Man! It was cold outside last night. And, my metal chair doesn't help! I really need to get an observatory built, and this spring, it will be my number one priority! Chuck... I didn't use any bias, dark, or flat frames for this one. I don't have good ones for the CM-10 camera yet. When I tried to use my calibration frames from a few weeks back, it really messed up the images. So, I just used the data rejection features in CCDStack to get rid of the hot and cold pixels and the blooms. I really need calibration frames because this camera has some weird illumination issues. I spent most of my processing time trying to get rid of the wicked gradients in the frames. I really didn't do a great job of it, but it will do until I get better calibration data. I probably spent about 1 hour on the processing, or perhaps a bit more. I was surprised at how well the camera picked up the detail despite the short (3min) luminance frames. That 3200XME chip is really amazing from a QE standpoint. It still has about the highest QE on the market. Happy New Year Everyone! Tyler _____________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 9:42 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] First Light Image with ASA N8 - M81 and M82 inUrsa Major Tyler, I first looked at your image with my old, 15" CRT monitor. Pretty neat. I just looked again, on my new 24" LCD HD monitor. WOW! I'm now thinking of copying it to a CD so I can look at it on my 50" plasma. That is poster material...and I can print up to 50" wide at work... *;o)* How much processing did you do aside from combining the exposures, and the usual dark/flate frame stuff? Good final color, very natural. Keep up the outstanding work! _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com