Iris Nebula 3 1/2 hours

[cuivenion]

This is the Iris Nebula, or Caldwell 04 taken over two nights in September.

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5

Scope: Skywatcher 130PDS

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI224

Guiding: Altair GPCAM and Finderguider

Imaging software: Sharpcap and PHD2

I stacked using DeepSkyStacker and processed the image using Pixinsight. It's about 3 1/2 hours of 29 second and 42.7 second exposures. The odd exposure times was because I was using the Sharpcap Brain Histogram feature to measure sky brightness for the optimum gain and exposure time.

I made a special effort to capture this as my niece is named Iris, hopefully she'll like it. Any comments and constructive criticism more than welcome.

[Maxrayne]

I quite like it. Not sure if my eyesight or slightly off-focus tho? Likely the former tbh (in which case, my apologies.) But regardless, I really like it ❤️ 

[cuivenion]

Thanks Max. What makes you think it's out of focus? The seeing wasn't great, especially the first night. I did perform star reduction and then tried to increase the star colour which may have made the stars shapes a little mishappen. I'm far from a processing expert.

[Maxrayne]

Me neither in fairness ( FAR from it in actual fact) Like I said, could just be my eyesight. Been making a lot of jokes about it being poor recently, but I SHOULD get it tested.

I'm looking more towards the edges. To me they seem a little "fuzzy" perhaps. But it IS a stunning image nevertheless and your niece will adore it ❤️ 

I'm planning on going after the heart nebula at some point for my youngest daughter (she was born with congenital heart disease) so I get the "extra" special reasons for going after a target. Keep up the excellent work

[cuivenion]

Thanks Max :). That'll be coma near the edges. I was hoping that with the small fov of the ASI224 I wouldnt need a coma corrector but it looks like I do. I haven't got the spacers I need for use with the ASI224 as yet unfortunately.

[cuivenion]

Annoyingly I've just noticed that I need to have the brightness at full on my iPad to see the fainter parts of the image. Looked fine on my laptop. On the iPad all the extended dust is missing. This happens occasionally with an image and I've never managed to figure out why.

[Maxrayne]

1 hour ago, cuivenion said:

Annoyingly I've just noticed that I need to have the brightness at full on my iPad to see the fainter parts of the image. Looked fine on my laptop. On the iPad all the extended dust is missing. This happens occasionally with an image and I've never managed to figure out why.

I get a similar issue between laptop and viewing on mobile devices as well in all honesty