Another Brick in the Wall

[Catanonia]

At long last, the clouds parted, the sky was crisp and the ground was cold. But add to that, November 6th, Fireworks, massive amounts of moisture in the air and a full moon.

Oh well experiment time and The Wall of the North American Nebula (NGC7000) was the target for some long 8nm Ha subs.

All started well until 2 subs in it was already meridian flip time grrrrr so out of practice, I should have noticed it......

Al sorts of guiding issues, camera isssues, but I did managed to get 5 hours in before the fog rolled in at 1am.

So here is 5 hours in 30 minute subs using the Skywatcher MN190, QHY9 Mono, 8nm Ha, TS OAG and QHY5 on a EQ6 Pro.

I spent to time with PI trying to get this as crisp as I could and showing the details in the wall. The processing was fun, it has been some time since I have had some data to play with.

Due to the long sub length, hardly any smoothing was done, more levels, curves and contrast / brightness adjustments.

I hope you like.

Full sized version is here http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10801850/Astro%20Pictures/Large%20Files/NGC7000%20Wall%20Large.jpg

Cat

[rocketandroll]

That's just lovely.

I love the fact, in these narrowband images of the wall you get that true sense of perspective and can actually see that the dark dust is in front of the nebula and the bright stars are in front of the dust... gives a sense of scale.

Very very cool, and well done for getting anything, it's literally been wall to wall cloud here in the east for three or four weeks solid now, with the exception of that ONE night I did my Gamma Cyg image a couple of weeks back. Come on.... where's the cold, crisp winter nights?!!!

Ben

[ollypenrice]

Perfect. An object lesson in how to do Ha. The signal is very strong so you have all the faint stuff without noise or visible noise reduction. The dynamic range is fully covered, the structures are sharp and yet the stars look natural, free fom the blocky, spikey look you can get in Ha.

Bang on the money.

Olly

[philj]

Wow thats nice, good and deep with plenty of detail.

Philj

[melsky]

Excellent image, one of the best I've seen of the wall, congratulations.

Mel

[MjrTom]

Wow that is stunning!

Thanks for sharing

[Uranium235]

Love that inky-black contrast, splendid

[Shibby]

Lovely image Cat, the detail and contrast is awesome!

[foundaplanet]

Super smooth, very nice.

[Catanonia]

Thanks everyone, seems like it was worth the effort which is really uplifting considering the lack of imaging these last 6 weeks. Lifted my spirits to get out when possible.

So tempting to buy the other narrowband filters

[Spikey]

A lovely contrasty image. Go on, get the filters you know you want to.....

[Catanonia]

A lovely contrasty image. Go on, get the filters you know you want to.....

LOL, with Christmas coming up, car to fix, don't tempt me

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Absolutely lovely image!

[Catanonia]

Grrr, missed the opportunity last night to get more data for the image. Too busy playing MW3 and didn't notice the nice skies

Reading back through the thread and looking at other images, I am so tempted to ask for NarrowBand filters for a Christmas present.

[Grinde]

Nice shot! How's that oag working out for you?

Bad excuse for not getting more data though, I might've accepted it if it was BF3 instead

Btw, I 'might' be doing a dual 190mn side-by-side mono&osc this winter

[Catanonia]

The OAG is fantastic. A pain to get the focus right, but once done and locked down I am sure I could get 1 hour subs with the EQ6 mount.

Daul MN190 side by side, now that is just plain greedy, but cool.

Watch out for MI5, it would look like a proper missile system

BF3, nah not got enough friends. Just got Forsa 4 today Looks good