Eagle, Swan, NAN, Sadr, Veil and Triffid (sort of) using night vision

[GavStar]

For various reasons annoyingly I haven’t done much observing in the past month or two. I really love summer stargazing - it just feels so much more relaxing when you aren’t getting frozen ?. There’s also some rather tasty DSOs to be seen. The following was all done in my back garden in London (sqm 18ish) with a well over half moon.

So having seen the nice evening skies tonight I decided to have a first proper go with the TEC160FL and Night Vision on the summer nebulae.

First up was one of my all time favourite DSOs, the lagoon nebula. This just skirts the top of the neighbours roof so I have limited time to view it but it was lovely , filling a lot of the fov (using the 55mm plossl) - I was able to get the triffid and lagoon in the same fov which made for an impressive view. Unfortunately I didn’t managed to take any phone photos apart from this one of the Triffid as it’s just going behind the neighbours chimney. I’ve only kept this photo because it’s the only one I’ve managed to get of the triffid so far ?

So then on to higher stuff. Swan and Eagle looked great with the 32mm plossl to give some extra image scale. Pillars of creation were quite visible in the eagle.

I then decided to try a bit of an experiment and put my 0.75x AP photo visual reducer into the TEC to a) get a larger fov and b) speed up the system to something around f2.5 with the 55mm plossl (from the original f7 of the TEC).

I normally view the North American nebula with a smaller scope and hence much bigger fov but seeing it tonight at this scale gave a nice insight for me with this fascinating DSO. There was a real puffiness to the nebula.

Then onto nearby Sadr:

Although the edges of the fov show some star shape distortion due no doubt to the extreme focal reduction I was doing - I’m very happy with the views obtained of these two objects.

Finally on to that tricky object for night vision - the Veil. The eastern section showed very well tonight

However the western section and pickerings triangle were still much fainter in the NV...

Good to be out observing again - next time I want to get Mars (which was hiding behind a tree) and some of these comets that are wandering about...

[Special K]

Great report!  That Triffid is unmistakable!  I share your thoughts on summer stargazing  

[Littleguy80]

Great report and photos as always, Gavin. I love that you can see the pillars in the picture of the Eagle. Very impressive. Nice dark lanes in the Triffid too. I’m really loving the summer observing too  

[alan potts]

Some impressive views there, all we have here is wall to wall storms, its been terrible weather for here, two months now. Last year atthis time I was on 23 clear nights for July, now I'm on 5 and they were windy.

alan

[PeterW]

We’ve had no rain since end of May... everything is crispy and brown....  be good to swap the odd hot day for a damp one. Nice session.

Peter

[Special K]

@GavStarI’ve got a bracket for my phone but not used it very successfully. Is there an online guide out there for taking photos with an iPhone?  I searched last night and didn’t find much. 

[niallk]

Very impressive- great report 

[GavStar]

39 minutes ago, Special K said:

@GavStarI’ve got a bracket for my phone but not used it very successfully. Is there an online guide out there for taking photos with an iPhone?  I searched last night and didn’t find much. 

I don’t know of an online guide but this article may help?

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/night-vision-phone-photography-r3149

I learnt mostly by trial and error. With an iPhone the nightcap app is definitely worth getting. I used to use an iPhone but wanted proper longer exposures (all of 10 seconds rather than the half second that the iPhone does). So now I use a Samsung S9 in pro mode.

I use a televue bracket that I find well constructed and easy to use - it gets the phone camera lens in the exact right place easily which I think is the key challenge. I also use alt az tracking mounts which makes it easier to keep the object in the centre. With the televue bracket I take off any phone case to make sure that I get the lens as close to the bracket opening as possible to avoid vignetting. Other than that I fiddle with iso levels and exposure times to see what looks best - it obviously varies from object to object. But last night I found iso 80 and 10 second exposures gave the best results. The views through the NV eyepiece were very similar to the phone photos I posted. Maybe on the Veil the photo shows the strands sharper.

Hope that helps and if you have any specific questions I’d be happy to try to answer them.

Heres a close up of another one from last night - the bubble nebula. The bubble was too small to see at the eyepiece but when I zoomed the photo in its reasonably clear.

[alanjgreen]

Love the image of the Eagle. The Pillars were not that clear in the Borg, visible yes, but clearer in your pic.

Nice image of the Swan. Its finally getting close to the view from out here in't countryside with the Borg89. The "good old bright tick" is no longer the focus of attention, getting lost in all that surrounding faint stuff. Did you notice the "mass of blackness" seemingly coming out of the circular hole in the swan? - thats the most noticeable bit from out here

The supposed "difficulty" with the Veil is not a problem for the 20". The whole Veil is stunning especially Pickerings Triangle which was better than an eyepiece, even the western veil is bright in big dob, getting much closer to the view in the ethos21. Have a look at the Veil map (that @Littleguy80 located - its in my recent post) and see how many of the little bits and pieces you can eek out next time out...

Just bought a great book "The Astrophotography Sky Atlas" by Charles Bracken. It neatly shows which nebula are great in "red" and is going to be a key resource over the next 2 months (Thanks to @PeterW). Shame that all the nebula in the book are NOT in Sky Safari Pro

Alan

[alanjgreen]

2 hours ago, GavStar said:

Heres a close up of another one from last night - the bubble nebula. The bubble was too small to see at the eyepiece but when I zoomed the photo in its reasonably clear.

Another nice shot. You can definately see the bubble!

You just need a big dob now to get that scale increased   The Bubble was very big in the dob, took me by surprise as I was looking for something smaller. Big dob showed the surrounding nebulosity much clearer too (but its gathering a bit more light) especially that piece that goes off to the star at 7 o'clock.

Did you use the 55mm on the bubble? It made a big difference to what I got with big dob when I "upped the speed".

Alan

[GavStar]

11 hours ago, alanjgreen said:

Another nice shot. You can definately see the bubble!

You just need a big dob now to get that scale increased   The Bubble was very big in the dob, took me by surprise as I was looking for something smaller. Big dob showed the surrounding nebulosity much clearer too (but its gathering a bit more light) especially that piece that goes off to the star at 7 o'clock.

Did you use the 55mm on the bubble? It made a big difference to what I got with big dob when I "upped the speed".

Alan

Yes it was the 55mm plus 0.75x reducer for ‘extreme’ focal reduction from f7 to around f2.5. Normally this sort of reduction would result in a lot of distortion and vignetting in the fov but I was very pleased with the views last night, only a small bit of distortion at the very edge of the fov. I used the 32mm plossl on the swan and eagle last night to get some more image scale but 90% of my NV observing is with the 55mm plossl.

In true NV fashion (one or two eyepieces and many scopes) I’ve got a big dob on order to arrive in the autumn to get some more image scale for the smaller objects (whilst keeping the system fast using my 55mm plossl ?). Now that’s going to confuse this refractor man!!!

Probably time to sell some of my eyepieces which aren’t getting used now...

[Special K]

Many thanks @GavStar that’s just what I was after!  Appreciate the help. Clear skies

[scarp15]

Lovely session and good insight for including a sqm approximation. This system, based on the accounts, is truly transformational (still trying to get my head around it) for gaining a decisive DSO session, particularly based from a light polluted sky. Great set of reference images taken, not been able to get out much myself for one reason or another also, expect to make the effort for dark sky trips to eek out what I can with trad e.p's and photon gathering in due course. 

[GavStar]

1 hour ago, scarp15 said:

Lovely session and good insight for including a sqm approximation. This system, based on the accounts, is truly transformational (still trying to get my head around it) for gaining a decisive DSO session, particularly based from a light polluted sky. Great set of reference images taken, not been able to get out much myself for one reason or another also, expect to make the effort for dark sky trips to eek out what I can with trad e.p's and photon gathering in due course. 

Really good point about the sqm. I have an sqm meter but forgot to get a measurement on monday night. I know from experience that the best I get in my back garden is 18.3 and on Monday the moon was washing out the sky a fair bit so I’m almost certain it would be worse than this. 

I’ve never seen a trace of the Veil from my back garden before Monday, so I guess I was taking it for granted with the views I got on Monday - the significance was lost on me at the time.

You also make an excellent point that NV is transformational with LP skies - it allowed me to have an excellent DSO session when with glass eyepieces I wouldn’t have seen anything...