My results from last week's run of clear moonless nights

[geoflewis]

Hi all,

I don't recall a run of clear moonless nights in the UK like we had last week for a long time. I've just finished processing the 4 targets that I captured, so here they are.....

FYI links to my Astrobin page where you can see capture details and full resolution images are also provide.

Beehive cluster (M44) - https://www.astrobin.com/393156/

https://www.astrobin.com/393156/

Great Orion Nebula + Running Man (M42 region) - https://www.astrobin.com/393222/B/

Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2175) - https://www.astrobin.com/393394/B/

Leo Triplet (M65, M66, NGC 3628) - https://www.astrobin.com/393867/

Thanks for looking.

Geof

[gorann]

Great catch Geof! I am envious. I only had one clear night recently and maybe maybe it could happen again on Friday. Your images all look really good. However, regarding the Monkey Head you may want to shrink the stars in the blue channel to reduce the blue dark rings around them that stands out against the red nebulosity.

 

[geoflewis]

11 minutes ago, gorann said:

Great catch Geof! I am envious. I only had one clear night recently and maybe maybe it could happen again on Friday. Your images all look really good. However, regarding the Monkey Head you may want to shrink the stars in the blue channel to reduce the blue dark rings around them that stands out against the red nebulosity.

 

Thanks Göran,

I've been having trouble with those blue halos for some time and tried several ways to get rid of them without much success, so I'll see if I can improve them as you suggest. I previously posted about the M42 stars....

...but so far no one replied.

Many thanks, Geof

[JeremyS]

Cracking images Geof!

[geoflewis]

Thanks Jeremy

Geof

[Scooot]

Yes smashing images Geof.  

[geoflewis]

Thanks Richard

Geof

[don4l]

What a productive week!  I do like the triplet.  You've also done an excellent job on the trapezium.

I recently did some experiments on the Trapezium and learned something new.  I used my ASI120 to take some very short (2s) shots and managed to get 6 stars.  5 had clear space between them.  At 15 seconds, all subs only showed  4 stars.

 

With 2 second exposures you could clearly see the image bouncing around the screen just like Jupiter does.  If I get another chance, I will try even shorter exposures.  I'm confident that I can split out that 6th star.

As you have pointed out, you cannot do this with a standard CCD camera.  It would take all night to get the 150 subs that I took.

[geoflewis]

Thanks Donal,

I've never captured more than 4 stars of the Trapezium with a camera, though I have seen E&F visually.

Geof