A bit of the Wizard

[lukebl]

I captured this bit of NGC 7380 the Wizard Nebula last night.

Only a bit of it due to the small sensor of my SXVF-H9 and 1200mm FL, but I'm quite pleased with the result. It's also my first attempt at 20 minute exposures which seems to have worked quite well, although EQMOD crashed after 3 hours, so I only got 9 captures. Like the Orion neb, bits of it are really bright and it's easy to overprocess them and lose the detail.

9 x 1200s exposures, Baader HA filter, SXVF-H9, 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian, NEQ6 mount, guiding with QHY5 and OAG.

[iksose7]

That neb looks lovely, and so do the stars - i'd say those 20 minute subs worked more than quite well!

[Daniel-K]

i like that wouldnt mind having a crack at that my self but i think its a tad faint for my setup

[nytecam]

Excellent results    It was clearish from London but gave it a miss - saw Jupiter at 2am due east

[andyo]

That's a great capture well worth doing the 20 min exposures

[lukebl]

Cheers, guys,

I've now added 3.5 hours of O-III. Not much signal there, but at least it gives a wash of colour. Slightly annoyed by the blue haloes around the stars as a result of the stars getting bloated with the O-III filter, but overall I'm quite pleased.

Just for a laugh, here's my guiding graph. All over the place, but still reasonably round stars with 20 minutes exposures. I'll never, ever, ever, get the hang of PHD settings, but perhaps the results show you shouldn't get too hung up about it!

[Daniel-K]

Your image is great but jeez id be having kittens with that graph! Still its done its job

[lukebl]

Actually, I think the graph is less alarming than it looks. I'm guiding with an Off-axis guider at a focal length of 1200mm, so the movement on the graph is exaggerated. If I had that sort of curve with a 400mm FL guidescope, then I'd be worried!

[Jessun]

I was going to say Luke, that the graph is not all that bad - then I saw your answer. You look pretty well aligned there by the looks of it! What exposure lenght do you use?

The image itself looks great! I really like the colour version! I just ordered my first OIII filter so very interested in what it can add to an image. A lot I'd say looking at this!

Which OIII filter is this?

/Jesper

[lukebl]

Jesper, the O-III filter is the Baader 8.5nm. It doesn't add much to the Wizard, compared to HA, and I had to stretch the image to get any sign of the nebula, but it's good for some planetary nebulae. Exposure length was 20 minutes for the HA and 10 minutes for the O-III (the O-III was captured under nearly full moonlight so I lowered the exposure length). Here's the stretched O-iii image. Noisy and plenty of stars but not much nebula!

[Jessun]

Enough to add a bit of colour and definition though!

/Jesper

(OIII in the mail, just don't know much about what to use it on....)

[Quatermass]

thats a cracking image really lovely the graph is wild but it worked so who cares lol