Blimey, these nebulae are trickier than I thought

[tomato]

After a bit of progress with bright galaxies and nebulae I took a deep breath and attempted to image the Elephant's Trunk Nebula with my little OSC CCD.

17 x 300 secs, no darks or flats, debayered and stacked in Atik Dawn, and about one hour's processing effort in StarTools. I know I should have orientated a long thin subject along the long side of the frame but after finally confirming the subject was in the FOV (I had to really stretch one 300 sec sub to be sure I had found the subject) I realised I would have to rotate the focuser 90 degrees, but my guide scope is attached to it and I was scared I would have to recalibrate and refocus so left it as it was.

Now I remember why I like to image small, (relatively) bright DSOs. These faint nebulae are a real challenge, I am beginning to see the appeal of narrowband, just need a bigger mono CCD, filters, filterwheel etc, remind me how much can you take out of your pension pot?

 

 

[kendg]

Like they say, if it was all easy, we wouldn't be doing this.

Nice image by the way.

[Starwiz]

Nice image!  

John

[Adam J]

You can get narrow band filters to work with a OSC, I even use a 2" 7nm Ha with my DSLR.  Buy the filters first, try them out and get the mono later. That way its less of a hit to the wallet.

[StuartJPP]

The first time I imaged this area of the sky I wasn't even sure I was pointing in the right direction. I was using a Canon 650D with a Canon 200mm f/2.8 L II lens and 3 minute subs at the time. Practically nothing showed up even with stretching single subs and that was from a fairly dark site.....the only hint that made me think I was pointing in the right direction was that the Garnet star was visible in the subs.

I subsequently shot this area of the sky with my Canon 6D and 500mm f/4 Lens which made things easier to see and I captured 6 hours worth of subs in the end...the difference after stacking was huge.

So yes, I'd say it is a pretty tricky subject.

 

[tomato]

Thanks for the reply Stuart. 

Your fine wide field image of this region certainly demonstrates that long exposures are needed for these type of subjects. 

Clearly I will need much more imaging time to get some decent detail.

[ollypenrice]

You have what was, until recently, considered a very obscure target. I'm sure you could get more out of it in processing, too. There are many tricks...

Olly

[tomato]

Thanks Olly, 

I chose it because it is quite high up at the moment  from my latitude, and the  specific Elephant's Trunk component would just about fit on my sensor. 

I was quite chuffed that l could see it on a single stretched 5 minute sub.

I certainly have much to learn on the processing side, I'm sure my current 'one size fits all' approach is not getting the best out of the data.