Veil Nebula

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I'm delighted with this one, it's taken me a few attempts to pull this out of my data.

It's a crop of an image taken with my 135mm Super-Takumar at f3.5 on a modded 100D, no flats or darks. It's only 10 minutes of inconsistent data due to haze and tracking errors - my reference frame has over 17,000 stars in it but the rest have between 14,000 and 10,000. Stacking in median mode seems to have helped and has also removed a couple of prominent satellite trails from the full frame.

With such a short run it's a bit of a compromise between bringing out the Veil and calming down the background. I used HLVG to rid it of some unwanted verde, allowing me to push the saturation mode. I'm looking forward to re-shooting this. I'd probably frame it a bit differently to move the cluster on the right a third of the way in, but I'll check some wider images first to see if there are any other objects I can bring in to the composition.

[jabeoo1]

Great image !  The veil is fascinating.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Yes, the Veil is fascinating. I imagine it must have been quite a show for our ancestors when it went bang some 5,000-8,000 years ago. It might be possible to work out the exact date - other nearby Supernova have been dated by looking at Antarctic ice cores. Gamma rays hitting the Earth's atmosphere cause nitrogen oxides to be produced. Samples of the atmospheric composition are then trapped in layers of snow. Staggering to think that a distant star can reach out and touch our planet.

[Beulah]

Did you use your eq3-2 mount for this?

Outstanding!!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks. Yes, that was with a borrowed modded camera on my EQ3-2, using my £18 eBay lens. I haven't got it running smoothly yet as my comet animation shows and the polar scope is a bit off, but imaging at 135mm is very forgiving. I'm throwing away a fair number of subs but it's not a big problem.

[Beulah]

Wow, better get cracking with setting up my EQ mount!

[Pete Presland]

very nice veil, its not the easiest of targets. you really are capturing some excellent images with your set up, very inspirational for anybody considering trying astrophotography!