The Crystal Ball Nebula - NGC1514

[lukebl]

This is something unusual I've been trying to image for a couple of weeks, but weather and moon have been against me. I captured several hours of subs in O-iii near full moon last week, but they weren't any good due to moon glow despite the narrowband filter. I intended getting a few hours worth of subs tonight, the first clear night for ages, but there's a lot of high cloud about so that plan went out of the window.

Anyway, here's the work so far. Just 1h 30 mins of useful O-iii subs, and an hour's worth of HA. SXVF-H9, 250mm/f4.7 Newt.

A fascinating, eerie object which has interested me for ages. Quite bright actually, so it should be quite easy even with RGB. It's in Taurus, approx 600 light years away, and discovered by Herschel in 1790 who described it 'a most singular phenomenon' (thanks Wikipedia!).

[steppenwolf]

Very nice, Luke, I think that's come out rather well and as you say, a fascinating object.

[Nexus 6]

was round at a friends earlier who had tried for this but he did say it was a difficult one so his image was just about ok, he has only been using the new equipment a matter of days but it did not give the impression yours does Luke. Very revealing

[Martin-Devon]

Nice one Luke - a great image on a relatively untrod target. As a matter of interest, the nice little observatory weather pics in your signature look very interesting - how did you capture & display these?

[lukebl]

Many thanks, gents. I really ought to spend some more time on this one, but there are so few opportunities for imaging in this lovely British climate of ours that I'll probably move on to something else.

...As a matter of interest, the nice little observatory weather pics in your signature look very interesting - how did you capture & display these?

Ah, this is my new toy, a weather station from Maplins (£69.99). There's a great program called Cumulus (donationware), which uploads all the data periodically to a website (mine uploads every 5 minutes). The great thing is that Cumulus has a whole set of ready-made web page templates, and I hade the whole thing set up and running within an hour. The weather graphs in my sig are just links to thumbnail images from my webpage (here), and are therefore always automatically updated in the sig. I can now while away the cloudy weather studying my weather graphs.

[Fenriz]

That's a very interesting looking object and a great looking image and another one to add to list of targets. Well done Luke.

[ollypenrice]

Certainly one for the list. You've brought out the structure already. Beautiful.

Olly

[Zul]

Very interesting image.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice image of intriguing object. Also very nice object visually, I think

[Quatermass]

That is a most interesting object very strange looking indeed and a very good image as well thank you for pointing this one out definitely adding it to my hit list.

[West End Wendy]

Excellent. On my observing list for tonight.

[Looking Up]

I like this one, very good detail and an unusual object, top marks!!!

[Tim]

Oh thats a pretty one, might have to have a go at that with a bit more fl.

Thanks Luke

[Sam]

That's a very interesting object. Nice work.

[Tom OD]

Beautiful image Luke,

I can see a second outer halo in there to. You got lots of detail in there.

Tom.

[Anweniel]

Fantastic image that and a nice target to choose. Almost reminds me of those days wasted away with an etch-a-sketch