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M57 on a night of good seeing

winfij

By winfij
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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winfij

winfij

Posted
Posted

Hi all,

We had a couple of nights of good seeing last week, so I grabbed 3 hours of data on M57, the Ring Nebula.

I'd just adjusted the collimation on my LX200R OTA, it's still nowhere near perfect but it's better than it has been. Hopefully when I get my new focuser on the scope which replaces the current pushfit adapter with a screw thread one, I'll be able to fix the current ccd tilt.

I was pleased to see I'd managed to clearly capture the 4th dim star in the Ring, on the SW inner edge of the ring, which I've never managed before.

Hopefully once I finally tweak the collimation and get some more nights of good seeing I'll be able to capture the elusive 5th star before M57 drops out of view.

Hope you enjoy the result, click the small image below to go to my web page with the image details and click on the image there to see the full size (cropped) image.

M57-20080702-LRGB.jpg

Cheers,

John

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Petervde

Petervde

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Great image, John. You certainly took advantage of the splendid seeing that night. Very crisp and lovely detail in the ring. Love the colours too. Is there any sign of the larger 'shell' around M57 in the original data?

Peter

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winfij

winfij

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Thanks for the comments all, I was certainly pleased when I saw the result.

Is there any sign of the larger 'shell' around M57 in the original data?

Hi Peter - Nope, although I wasn't going for depth with this shot, there have been a load of bush fires in the hills around here, so the skies are pretty murky right now. I also didn't use any Ha, just LRGB, so I don't have the ability to go deep due to the local light pollution from San Jose.

What are the imaging details?

Hi Rob, the details are on the page linked from the image, but I'll paste them here as well:

Coordinates (J2000) :

RA: 18h53m35.1s Dec: +33°01'45"

Constellation : Lyra

Integrated Magnitude : 9.40

Size : 1.4 arcmin

Equipment details :

ART11002 through 10" LX200R, autoguided

Exposure details :

L = 18 x 240s unbinned

RGB = 18 x 120s binned 2x2 each

Notes:

Seeing was unusually good for these two night of imaging, which combined with the recently tweaked collimation of the scope resulted in a stellar FWHM of ~2.1 arcsec. Some light deconvolution resulted in the stars FWHM of 1.8 arcsec.

I was pleased to be able to clearly distinguish the fourth dim star in the ring, just on the inside edge of the ring, which has eluded me to date.

The collimation still needs refining further - hopefully when I replace the focuser I will be able to fix the residual ccd tilt as well.

Cheers,

John

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MartinB

MartinB

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Stunning image John. Certainly up there with the best. I had a problem opening the link.

Are you using your mulitple guide star plug in yet? I've downloaded it but haven't had chance to give it a try

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winfij

winfij

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Stunning image John. Certainly up there with the best. I had a problem opening the link.

Are you using your mulitple guide star plug in yet? I've downloaded it but haven't had chance to give it a try

Thanks Martin,

Here's the direct link to the full sized crop in case that works:

http://winfij.homeip.net/gallery/latest/M57-20080702-LRGB.jpg

I host this on my own PC at home, so sometimes the connection can be a little flaky.

I'm not using the multi-star guiding on a regular basis, since I use ACP to automate my overnight runs, however I have used it on a trial basis and it seemed to give a benefit.

I've been talking to theMaxim guys about integrating it into their app, so it's more easily accessible.

Hopefully after they get v5 out, they'll have some time to look at it.

On the same note, I've been making some additional changes to it, to try and work even better in poor seeing conditions. I'll be doing some field trials on those changes once I get a chance.

John

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