NGC 281, The Pacman Nebula, with a stock Nikon D5300 (72 mins) and an IDAS-D1 Filter from a Red/Orange Zone

[Xiga]

The last time i'd done any imaging was way back in January, so i was itching to get back out. Plus, i now had a new imaging laptop so i really needed to test out all the software under the stars, so a few weeks back we had a clear night forecast and i thought, what the heck, let's set everything up and get to testing. 

Our inner city backyard is tiny, and pretty much the only target that was in my small North-facing FOV was the Pacman Nebula, so i fired up SGP and off I went. PA via Sharpcap was a first for me, and a pleasant one at that. Managed to get it dialled in nice and easy first time. That, along with the new Rowan Belt Mod, gave me the best guiding in PHD2 i've ever seen, between 0.5-0.6". Platesolving in SGP went great, as did manual rotation. Focusing took ages, but that's a story for another day. By this stage though it was already quite late, and there was only 1 hour of Astro Dark in total on this particular night, and it was already half gone, so i only managed to capture 9 subs of 8 mins each. I did actually get 3 more, but the sky was so blue by that stage they were unuseable. 

This was only meant to be a test run, so i was honestly not expecting to keep the files, but i was really surprised at what the unmodded D5300 was able to pick up using a LPF from inside a city. Of course, the image contains a thousand sins, to be expected i suppose under the circumstances, but for a modest imager like myself i'll take whatever i can get! lol

A target such as this obviously needs a modified camera, and up to now i've been reluctant to even bother trying Ha rich targets without a modified camera, but the D5300 has impressed me so much i think i will now have a go at another target (probably NGC 7000) the next time i get a chance. Nothing ventured nothing gained! 

Clear skies all!

ps - This is 9 subs (8 mins each) at ISO 200, calibrated with a Master Bias (from about 300 or so) and a Master Flat (from about 30). No Darks used. All subs dithered highly, captured with SGPro, stacked in DSS (which still eliminated a couple of satellite trails despite only having 9 subs to work with), gradient reduction done in PI L.E, and final processing done in PS. 

pps - For those looking to upgrade their capture machine, i can totally recommend a Lenovo X230 laptop. They are a dime a dozen (due to the business and student markets) so you can pick up a refurbished one on the cheap. I paid £150 for mine. It has 3 USB slots (2 of which are USB3.0 so is even good for planetary), has 8GB of RAM, an i5 processor, great battery life, and my one even came with a 180GB SSD. Some improvement over the pathetic Samsung N220 Netbook i was using before!

[MikeODay]

Great image, I love the colours.  Thank you for sharing your image and write-up.

[Xiga]

Thanks Mike. I did admittedly go a bit nuts on the colours, just for fun mostly!

ps - Your Omega Centauri image literally caused my jaw to hit the floor when i saw it the other day! So. Many. Stars. !!!