Beaten by a sulphurous eagle

[MattJenko]

OK, I admit defeat in this round. I have tried an ambitious project to do a deep narrowband image of M16, but I have bitten off more than I can chew.

This target is low in the North Essex sky, it is not imagable for long each night, there is no real darkness, and it crosses the meridian during the night and spends most of the time there. These factors have all conspired to make this an extremely chastening effort for me. I have now spent 4 sessions on this, and have 6 usable subs. 6. The rest are throw away, or the imaging messed up overnight etc etc. The main issue is tracking/guiding as I believe my mount stumbles all over the place around the meridian (backlash?), and it is noticeable that after a flip, I have had to discard nearly every single sub due to bad tracking, presumably as the weight has shifted to the other side and I didn't recalibrate etc etc. I also tried using a new guidescope, but whilst heavier, I am not sure is the root cause.

All in all, this target has kicked my proverbial behind, and in a way I am very glad, as it is good to be humbled by more than just the wonder of these objects. Keeps me firmly on Earth and makes me appreciate other's efforts even more.

Here is the sum total of a lot of effort. I have had to work hard to reduce the effect of the oblong stars/subs.

Skywatcher ED80/HEQ5/Atik 414ex : 6 x 20mins Sii only...

[pipnina]

Is it not imagable in, say, a month from now when true darkness returns? The MW will be out sooner as well so it sounds ideal... I haven't experianced it myself yet but stellarium seems to show m16 as very imagable in september at a reasonable time!

p.s. you're images are much better than mine! You actually have tracking!

[MattJenko]

Thanks Pipnina. As time passes, the eagle flies closer and closer to the orange soup that collects above Colchester. I guess narrowband should be able to cope, thinking about it. I need to have break from this though I think and have a crack at some less ambitious targets and practice the basics. If I am feeling good about it all, I'll do as you suggest and have another go later this year

[xtreemchaos]

hats off to you matt.you done well to get a cool image like that at this time of year with no real darkness.thanks for sharing..charl..

[Uranium235]

Remember that the lower in the sky you image, the more your guide star will jump about due to astmospheric disturbance. A way to combat this is to increase the length of the images taken by the guide camera (4s is usually enough).

Try going for the lagoon... thats when things get really rough!

[ollypenrice]

Ditch the Sii! This will sing in Ha far more easily. There is O111 as well but when Yves and I did this a couple of years ago I used the O111 (added to HaLRGB) but Yves didn't, in the end. He just went for HaLRGB. If you're strapped for time go for Ha. You have an impressive result in the light-strangling Sulphur filter all the same!

Olly

[Droogie 2001]

I am trying to schedule a time to image M16 as well as it companions the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas. Sadly the weather, elevation and the lack of darkness is making it tricky.

Still I think you have managed to achieve a good image, you can clearly see the pillars.

[nightster]

I think this is amazing and I have to wonder was an astro physicist from 1985 would think if he saw this for the first time. I suppose he would think it came from a multi million dollar NASA project and not a rig that cost about the same as a used Honda Civic. And definitely not by an amateur in a backyard. I congratulate you on working through the difficulties and hashing out some good data. The difficult nights are still (mostly) better than a good night's sleep.

[MattJenko]

Thank you all for the pep talk and the compliments!

This has forced me to tackle a few aspects of my imaging which needed attention, so I am seeing this as a good thing. I will have another go at this if and when the clouds ever clear.

I had a cathartic M10 through a couple nights of high cloud this week trying out a few things, but still think it will be a while before I attempt anything lower in the sky than this

[MattJenko]

Ditch the Sii! This will sing in Ha far more easily. 

You are certainly not wrong! 18 x 20mins Ha. DBE and STF stretch only.