Owl Nebula advice

[Brian28]

It's almost a full moon and it's going to be clear tonight , so I want to do some imaging and was thinking of the Owl Nebula .

As the moon is bright  and what with light pollution I was thinking of Narrow band ..  

has anyone any experience of this target and Narrowband ? And any advice . 

I've seen a couple of images using Ha and OIII filters ..  that look very nice .. 

[alan4908]

Well according to CCDNavigator, this is 76 degrees from the Moon and LRGB imaging is not recommended, although NB will be OK.

I've only tried a Ha blend into LRGB - I found that blending the black clipped Ha into the Lum increased the level of detail.  The result is in my album Deep Sky III.

Alan

 

[Mr_42tr0nomy]

The owl nebula is bright in both Ha and Oiii emission. I would suggest shooting Ha while the moon is full and then moving to Oiii when it’s waned a bit. oiii is more perceptive to gradients from light pollution from the moon so that’s better shot when the moon isn’t out

[fireballxl5]

I was thinking of a NB target over the next couple of nights, the Ring nebula was my plan. The Owl is much higher. I've got 1100mm focal length at 0.7arc-sec/pixel to play with.

[ollypenrice]

I think the moon will kill OIII, I'm afraid. This is the most important filter for the Owl and may allow you to find the faint outer halo. However, Ha is important for the 'face' and well worth shooting. I'd do that in the moon time.

Olly

[Brian28]

On 19/04/2019 at 18:22, fireballxl5 said:

I was thinking of a NB target over the next couple of nights, the Ring nebula was my plan. The Owl is much higher. I've got 1100mm focal length at 0.7arc-sec/pixel to play with.

Hi , did you get the arming Nebula ? , I have managed to get the Owl ?, and will post a pic in a few days ..

i tried to slew round to the Ring but my software couldn't solve , I was wondering what you used ? 

Im in SGPro using  plate solve 2 ..   

 

Regards Brian 

[fireballxl5]

Hi @Brian28

I usually use the internal database within MaxImDL to go-to targets and then use PlateSolve2 if (when?) PinPoint Lite fails to solve. Otherwise I use SkyMap Pro to find more difficult targets such as comets and then solve within MaxIm/PS2.

As it turned out, I didn't go for the Ring as the Owl seemed a better target as I haven't imaged it before and it was much higher altitude. Thanks for the suggestion?

And then when setting up I remembered that I had started a long term project for when the Moon is around, Sharpless 174 in Cepheus. This is a tough target for me, needing 15 min exposures in Ha to get any signal that is significantly above the background.  Why SkyMap Pro calls it a "bright nebula" I'll never know lol!

So last night, this morning I moved on the Owl with the intention of creating a HOO image at some point. Here's 2 hours of Ha from earlier today. I'll aim to grab some more tonight.

 

[Brian28]

Well the weather here in sunny Essex has been great , 3 days with my scope set up in the garden. 

Here is my interpretation of M97 The Owl Nebula . 

6 hrs 30 mins of Luminance , Ha and OIII 

with 30 flats , 30 Darks & 30 bias frames 

processed in APP and PS . 

[fireballxl5]

nice image with great colours Brian!

I also managed to grab 6.5 hours, but only Ha and OIII. I've been playing with the data today but may need to add some Lum to bring the signal levels up. 

[Brian28]

Thank you .. I'm glad you got some data too .. 

i was originally just going to do Ha and OIII but I tried a couple of Luminance frames , and they looked good so I went for it .. 

it wa so nice to be able to leave the rig set up in the garden just covered during the day .. one day I may have a dome over it , if the wife lets me ?