Super Nova SN 2011BY in NGC3972

[keithmrris]

Hi Gang, last night was fairly clear so I had a go at something I have been wanting to do for a few weeks now.

Some of you may not know about the super nova (sn2011by) in NGC3972 in Ursa Major. I think I have managed to capture it quite well despite the windy conditions yesterday.

Right details

W/O ED102

Type IV Field Flattener

EQ6 Pro mount

Canon EOS 450D (astro modded)

30x 180 seconds exposure (total time of 90 minutes)

8x dark frames

ISO 800

Baader UHC-S filter

Unguided

Seeing 8/10 but the air was a quite a bit choppy

Considering the conditions last night I am very pleased with this, no doubt I will be able to bring out some more detail with a little bit more processing,

[fatwoul]

Awesome. I did not know about this.

Have you monochrome'd this image, or is there just not much colour to be seen at this scale, of this region?

[rocketandroll]

Awesome!! :-)

If nothing else... top marks for 180 second unguided exposures!!!!

Ben

[keithmrris]

Shot as colour but probably some of the colour got washed out in the processing. Also this is a close crop of the original photo as it is a small target.

As for the 180 seconds unguided, I spent quite a long time getting the polar alignment as spot on as I could since I cannot do a drift alignment from my location.

It was a long and drawn out process of take a 3 minute photo and afjust mount according to the star trailing and shoot again. Keep doing until star trailing is acceptable or eliminated. There is a slight bit of trailing but that is more than likely down to the wind last night as I have shot photos of M51 (not very far away from NGC3972) of 5 minutes without star trailing.

Keith