Dark Nebulas in Cepheus and M101

[mftoet]

There's a saying which goes 'God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands'. One of those creations is the 'Afsluitdijk', a dyke that separates the North Sea from the 'IJsselmeer' (a lake that used to be the South Sea). Halfway the dyke there's a turning point where the sky darkness can reach Magnitude 21.6 per sqr. arcsec. October 2017 was the last time I visited the turning point on the Afsluitdijk. Because the weather has been very nice in the Netherlands since last Monday and because of the young Moon at the beginning of this week, I packed my equipment to enjoy a beautiful evening with good seeing and transparency. While my scope was gathering photons, I joined a fellow observer with his 45 cm Dobson. Spiral arms in M51 and M81 were spectacular!

I had a new camera to try out: a Nikon D810a. I started at 23h00 (moment of astronomical darkness) with M101. After an hour Cepheus was already pretty high in the sky and I had some objects just east of the 'house' that the bright stars of Cepheus form on my short list: LDN 1089, 1094 & 1100, LBN 444 & 447 and Sh2-130.

Both images have been shot with my Epsilon-180ED on Mach1 and guided (and dithered) with a Lacerta MGEN. 5 minutes subs on ISO 200. 1 hour of integration time on M101, 2 hours of integrations time on LDN 1089 etc.

Thanks for watching!

 

    

[gingergeek]

hmm Dark Dusty nebula, lovely work

[Barry-Wilson]

Beautiful work with much delicate dust and process - lots to admire.  Well done Maurice.

[Allinthehead]

Lovely images Maurice. That's a great mobile setup you have.

[mftoet]

Thanks for the comments. In the meantime I've update the images: a little more noise reduction in the images of the Cepheus dark clouds and colour balance / white balance correction in the M101 image.

[ollypenrice]

Sensational dark nebulae, Maurice - and done in a single session and 'mobile.' That's quite something. Yes indeed.

Olly

[gorann]

Truely amazing what you achieved in three hours! Love them. A bit envious as FL 500mm @ f/2.8 is a different ball park compared to what most of us are used to.

[peter shah]

beautiful set of images

[mftoet]

Thanks again. An f-ratio of 2.8 helps a lot. It's about 3.2 faster than an FSQ-106 (that has approximately the same focal length, so fair to compare f-ratio myth wise). Using a Nikon D810a also helps. Some 6 years advance in camera technology (I used to own a Canon 5D Mark II) is clearly visible. Though 20 years of experience in astrophotography is what matters most. You have to make lots of mistakes to become a good (astro)photographer.

[Rodd]

17 hours ago, mftoet said:

Thanks again. An f-ratio of 2.8 helps a lot. It's about 3.2 faster than an FSQ-106 (that has approximately the same focal length, so fair to compare f-ratio myth wise). Using a Nikon D810a also helps. Some 6 years advance in camera technology (I used to own a Canon 5D Mark II) is clearly visible. Though 20 years of experience in astrophotography is what matters most. You have to make lots of mistakes to become a good (astro)photographer.

Great shot.  I will soon be trying an FSQ 106 at F3 (.6x reducer).  If this is any indication of what I am in for...bring it on!

Rodd

[Guest]

Really impressive work - well done :-)

David