NGC7000 work in progress (modded DSLR)

[MartinFransson]

The other night I got this seasons first go at the North American Nebula. This was also my first session on this target with a proper mount. I got 1h 56 minutes worth of 3-minute subs. Now I´ve done a try at stacking this with my previous data, mostly 2-minute subs from last year using the AstroTrac. Since the older subs had slight misfocus and hints of trailing, the result wasn´t perfect. Here I´ve tried blending two stacks in Photoshop, where the brighter parts (stars) are from stacking only this years data and the fainter part is the combined data. In full resulotion it can still be seen that the stars are not perfect and there is slight banding noise in the lower part of the image. There is also a reflex from a misaligned filter from the brightest star.

However, I´m really excited about the results, since I´m using a cheap DSLR and this was imaged early in the season leading to sensor temps of +20 degrees. Give me a few more hours of proper data on this target and it´s going to get really good

Canon EOS 1100D (Baader modified) @ISO800

Canon EF 300/4L IS

HEQ5 Pro / AstroTrac TT320X

Orion Magnificent Mini Autoguider

BackYardEOS, PHD, PixInsight, Photoshop, etc.

Total exposure:

50*120 seconds + 38*180 seconds = close to 4 hours

Thanks for watching!

[MartinFransson]

Here´s a 100% crop from the center of the image. Not too bad noise considering a non-cooled DSLR and no heavy noise reduction. Also, I think the stars are fairly sharp considering less than perfect tracking for halv of the frames.

[laudropb]

Very nice image. I prefer the uncropped one. It seems more dynamic to me. Thanks for posting.

[MartinFransson]

Very nice image. I prefer the uncropped one. It seems more dynamic to me. Thanks for posting.

Thanks! Yeah, the 100% crop was only to show noise levels.

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[Uranium235]

For such short subs - thats pretty good! Once the temp drops a bit more you will be able to kick it up a notch or two in terms of exposure length.

[MartinFransson]

For such short subs - thats pretty good! Once the temp drops a bit more you will be able to kick it up a notch or two in terms of exposure length.

Thank you! The problem is that the nebula is dropping faster than the temp It will be too low in the sky later on.

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[StuartJPP]

Good job...

[Uranium235]

Thank you! The problem is that the nebula is dropping faster than the temp It will be too low in the sky later on.

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I think now would be your best time, Cygnus is more or less directly overhead - so your data should be ultra clean (its what im pointing at now)