ASI224 Bubble Nebula

[cuivenion]

This is the Bubble Nebula, an emission nebula discovered in 1787 by William Herschal. Very high in the sky at the moment in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is four hours of forty second exposures taken over two nights with a ZWO ASI224 using a Skywatcher 130PDS on a HEQ5 mount. Guided by a Altair GPCAM with a Skywatcher Finder Guider.

A hundred darks were taken each night. It was captured with Sharpcap, stacked with Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Pixinisight. Any comments or criticisms welcomed as usual.

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice one! Might give it a bash with my ASI224MC and APM 80mm F/6 with focal reducer, or even try narrowband with the ASI178MM

[cuivenion]

Cheers Michael. I'm using the 224 more than my DSLR at the moment, sensitivity is winning out over chip size right now.

[Dinglem]

Very nice, I have an ASI224MC and only used it on planets so far. Can I ask what settings did you use in Sharpcap?

[cuivenion]

2 minutes ago, Dinglem said:

Very nice, I have an ASI224MC and only used it on planets so far. Can I ask what settings did you use in Sharpcap?

Sure:

40 Second Exposures

61 Gain

0 Brightness for the first night of imaging, 28 for the 2nd night. I'm still experimenting with brightness (offset settings).

It depends on the object though, Just make sure your histogram isn't touching the left hand side and is not over exposed. The new Sharpcap manual explains it pretty well:

https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/3.2/#The Histogram

 

[cuivenion]

I use the Live stacking to capture as well and use the Save Individual Frames feature. That way I can use the FWHM and brightness filter, so that bad frames aren't saved.

[Dinglem]

Thanks for that, I'll have a read and play ?

[cuivenion]

Here's a revised version with the background darkened a little. I've tried to take a bit of colour out of the background too:

[paul mc c]

Cracking image...could you tell me was this taken with the cooled 224 version or the ordinary one?

[cuivenion]

Cheers Paul, it's the uncooled version. I'd love a cooled camera.

[paul mc c]

8 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

Cheers Paul, it's the uncooled version. I'd love a cooled camera.

Makes it even better,i did'nt think you could do that long an exposure with un cooled 224 camera,will def give mine a go now.

[cuivenion]

Yeah, 1000 seconds is quoted as the max exposure.

[tooth_dr]

The ZWO numbers sometimes go over my head.  I cant believe you took this with an uncooled essentially planetary camera!  Stunning.

[cuivenion]

14 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

The ZWO numbers sometimes go over my head.  I cant believe you took this with an uncooled essentially planetary camera!  Stunning.

Cheers, appreciate it. The low read noise helps.