IC 443 The Jellyfish Nebula

IC 443 Jellyfish Nebula Date of image 23/11/2016.

Hardware details: Camera: Canon 600D (astro modded). Telescope: SW Evostar 120 with Baader UHC-S filter. Mount: AZ-EQ6 guided using a ST80 synguider. Image details: Lights: 14 x 3min at ISO 800, Darks: 50 x 3min at ISO 800 (taken during cloud cover), Lights and darks separated by 15 sec intervals. Flats: 50 x 1/350s (taken from laptop monitor screen) at ISO 800, Bias: 50 x 1/4000 at ISO 800. 

The weather was not great - no clouds during the first 40mins of imaging, then they rolled in and never cleared until morning.

Comments:

My first attempt at this nebula. I will need to target i again to reduce the noise. I did have time to capture 50 dark frames at the correct ambient temperature. Some of my previous images have suffered from a directional line-like noise. It has been suggested that this is caused by improperly calibrated darks. So here I set to test this by taking proper darks. After processing, the image is noisy - but this is not directional, meaning the darks worked and I just need more frames. There is also a strong gradient in this image, not sure what from but I tend to get this when imaging targets at low altitudes. Tonight is predicted to be clear...another chance for more data!