The Complexity of imaging the Veil :)

[Beyond_Vision]

I had my imaging kit set up well before dark and aligned it as soon as the first few stars were out. Everything was ready to rock and roll with the exception of the focus for the DSLR. I slewed to Vega and after much faffing around I had the focus spot on. I then stupidly declared to my missus that everything was set and the focus was as sharp as a tack. That must have been tempting fate as later on when it was dark enough to start imaging it all went pear shape.

I had planned to image the whole of the Veil Nebula complex with the WO66SD and focal reducer. I had centred on the Veil Nebula east and decided to that it would be better to set the mount for the west part (the Witches Broom) because of the bright star near it. I slewed to it then realised that I would need to rotate the camera to fit the east part in. Well this is the moment that i wish I had left well alone as somehow I nudged it out of good focus. OK so back to Vega again and redo the focus this seemed to take an eternity to get right again probably due to me rushing and getting tired. Finally I get the whole Veil neb in frame and focused then I see the Moon rising above the house line. Having wasted a good hour or so faffing about I finally started imaging. Finally got to sleep at 3 ish.

Not entirely happy with the end result, as there appears to be a lot of vignetting or either that there is ball of very diffuse nebulosity bounded by the nebulae not sure which.

Image taken with a Canon 400D, WO 0.8x focal reducer flattener, Astronomik CLS clip filter, 20 frames x 3mins @ISO1600

(click to enlarge)

Regards

Kevin

[Tim]

wow, thats a cracker. Does the night we had justice. Thats a great looking couple of nebs, whereabouts are they?

Also, what does that uhc filter do Kevin?

You didnt fancy the qhy8 then?

Cheers

TJ

[Beyond_Vision]

wow, thats a cracker. Does the night we had justice. Thats a great looking couple of nebs, whereabouts are they?

Also, what does that uhc filter do Kevin?

You didnt fancy the qhy8 then?

Cheers

TJ

I'm going to wait until the nights are longer then start using the QHY8 again. I have the DSLR set up off to a 'T' so in theory should be able to maximize the small window of opportunity we have at mo. The UHC filter is mostly designed for passing light from emission nebulae improving contrast. In reality you should use it with larger aperture scopes with which you can afford to loose some of the light.

Regards

Kevin

[LostNSpace]

Nice work with the Veil Kevin.......

It seems to of been a popular target last night, one of my targets too but my results arent anywhere as near as good as those that have been posted today.....

Mark

[Paxo]

It would appear that SGL had more Veil's than a cheap Las Vegas wedding convention last night - I'll post mine later as well, first attempt at Ha from the back garden.

Nice work though Kevin, youve captured the vastness of this SN remnant beautifully. Mrs Paxo and I were just laughing at your exploits last night as we had exacty the same problems focusing - vega, never mind eh.

Steve..

[MikeD]

Great result Kevin, love that fov.

Re the vignetting, flats is the way to go.

Mike.

[beamish]

Looks like in spite of your difficulties you still managed to glean an exceptional image there Kevin. It is a bit of a shame about the vignetting but WOW what a superb fov. I don't think I've seen it like that before.

Well done mate !

Karlo

[MikeD]

Hi Kevin.

I had a go at the vignetting in your image.

I opened it in pixinsight LE ( LE is the free version you can find here http://pixinsight.com/download/LE/index.html) I used the dynamic background extraction tool ( to get this tool you will also need to download and install the upgrade on the same page) to kill the LP gradient.

there is a full tutorial on how to use the dynamic background extraction tool here http://pixinsight.com/tutorials/index.html it's at the bottom of the page.

It will work better on the original image but you can see it helps a lot.

Then some curves not a lot in PScs3.

(click to enlarge)

Mike

[steppenwolf]

Kevin, despite your woes, Kevin, you have captured some nice data.

Vignetting with these large sensors is a real pain and taking 'flats' or spending a lot of time on post processing is the only way to resolve the issues. You have this very nicely framed now so it was worth the trouble.

To save this problem in the future, you could use Cartes du Ciel and define your FOV in the reticle that C du C places over centred objects and then rotate the software reticle until you get the best framing on the screen - you can then read off the number of degrees of rotation from the program and rotate your camera to approx. the same angle before you do your alignment and focus routines.

[MartinB]

Well you got it framed very nicely in the end Kevin. Shame about the lost time, so many things to mess up when imaging. The ZS66 is a great little scope!

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Superb Kev. Another technique to try is here:-

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,22902.0.html

It worked on the 8 bit jpg quite well, so on your original it should be ace.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Beyond_Vision]

Thanks for the nice comments and thanks for the rework Mike and KK for the links.

I did actually take some flat frames and applied them with DSS but it didnt really make much difference. The strange thing about the brighter patch is that it is not central to the image but offset to the right and seems to be a circle coincidental with the veil nebula filaments. Theres is a bulge on the side near Pickerings triangle. Im still wondering if it very diffuse patch of nebulosity of the supernova shell?

[Sam]

Hi Kevin.

I had a go at the vignetting in your image.

I opened it in pixinsight LE ( LE is the free version you can find here http://pixinsight.com/download/LE/index.html) I used the dynamic background extraction tool ( to get this tool you will also need to download and install the upgrade on the same page) to kill the LP gradient.

there is a full tutorial on how to use the dynamic background extraction tool here http://pixinsight.com/tutorials/index.html it's at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for posting that Mike, a very useful link.