North America Nebula

[emyliano2000]

Well, the summer targets are starting to be a bit higher in the sky and I thought of starting early with a very well known target, the North America nebula.

Equipment used:

Eq3 Pro Canon 700D astro modified

Samyang 135mm f2 @ f2.8

IDAS LPS-D1 clip in filter

Astronomik 6nm Ha clip in filter

QHY5 guide camera 9x50 finder-guider

QhyCCD polemaster

Software used: Eqmod, APT for capturing and platesolving, Stellarium with StellariumScope, SharpCap for polar alignment and PHD2 for guiding.

Location: Bushey UK, Bortle 6 for the Ha and Pontarfynach, Wales, Bortle 2 for the RGB Date: 18, 19 and 20.04.2019 for the Ha and 05.05.2019 for the RGB

The image is the result of 71x300sec ISO1600 exposures for the Hydrogen alpha, 10x180sec and 15x180sec ISO800 exposures for the RGB stacked and calibrated in DSS and processed with Photoshop CC 2019 and Lightroom CC.

I hope you like it.

Emil

Edited May 8, 2019 by emyliano2000

[Seanelly]

Very nice!

[MarsG76]

Nice North America.... 

[Ronclarke]

That's a great image, well done ?

[Saganite]

Another beauty Emil.

[emyliano2000]

I think my monitor needs a proper callibration.

On my phone it looks quite washed out and dark.

Does this one look better? I tweaked it in Lightroom on my phone.

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Nice small stars, did you use a front aperture mask to stop down to f2.8?

[emyliano2000]

2 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Nice small stars, did you use a front aperture mask to stop down to f2.8?

No, I didn't, only stopped it down from the lens itself.

[ollypenrice]

A terrific image, particularly of the outlying dust which is beautifully three dimensional.

Olly

[alan potts]

Wow, superb image, one of the best I have seen of this.

Alan

[Knight of Clear Skies]

From a relatively low-cost imaging rig too.

[Ouroboros]

That's a great image of a target that looks its best in wide field.   The second image really zings. Well done! 

I bet a lot of us envy the  Bortle class II. Something that is sadly becoming ever rarer in southern Britain at any rate. 

[emyliano2000]

Thank you guys! 

1 hour ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

From a relatively low-cost imaging rig too.

I tried to put an amount that I spent fir everything used to shoot this target and it's a bit over £1000 so not too bad I suppose.

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

The second image really zings. Well done! 

I bet a lot of us envy the  Bortle class II.

I absolutely envy the bortle 2 skies too. I'm on the outskirts of London under bortle 6 skies at Zenith and the bortle 2 trip to Wales came a bit unexpected. I had Wales in my mind for quite a while and a week before, looking at the wearther forecast for the bank holiday weekend I noticed that it was looking quite promising so I booked a tent pitch in a Caravan park at Devil's Bridge, Pontarfynach. 10 hour return trip for a 5 hour imaging session under bortle 2 skies, is it worth it? Definitely, and I would do it again anytime.

One day, I'm hoping to pay Olly a visit. ?

I had some more RGB data shot in my back garden but I felt like it was ruining the RGB photo so I decided to only use the data captured in Wales. In the photo, on the left hand side, there is a reflection nebula, IC5076 that I completely lost in the stack where I used the RGB data shot from my back garden.

I managed to capture some Elephant trunk data too because I have some Ha shot in my back garden.

Edited May 9, 2019 by emyliano2000

[Astroscot2]

Lovely image Emil,  The Eq3-2 seems to cope very well with widefield imaging,  do you have any issues with guiding it? do you have a picture of your setup you could share.

 

Thanks

Mark

Edited May 9, 2019 by Astroscot2

[emyliano2000]

59 minutes ago, Astroscot2 said:

Lovely image Emil,  The Eq3-2 seems to cope very well with widefield imaging,  do you have any issues with guiding it? do you have a picture of your setup you could share.

 

Thanks

Mark

Eq3 is indeed quite good for widefield. I upgraded to tripod to a stainless steel one for more stability. I sometimes have problems but it's nothing that a little play with the screws can't solve. ?

I sometimes use my ts65q on it and get subarcsecond guiding.

The last photo is the setup fully portable, guided by a lacerta mgen and powered by a 22Ah tracer battery. Laptop only used for polar alignment and platesolving.

 

[Astroscot2]

Nice set up, im looking at something similar and torn between something truly portable like the Ioptron Skyguider pro or going down the route of a small EQ mount with the option of guiding both axis ?

The EMQ35 seems to be an upgrade of the EQ32 pro but ive not seen any reviews.  By the time you upgrade the EQ3-2 tripod your not far off the price of an EQM35.

 

Look forward to seeing some more of your photos with this set up.

 

Mark

[emyliano2000]

39 minutes ago, Astroscot2 said:

By the time you upgrade the EQ3-2 tripod your not far off the price of an EQM35.

 

I bought them both from the 2nd hand market, cost me £220 all together ?

[Ouroboros]

@emyliano2000 what's the ice cube thingy on top of the DSLR? 

[emyliano2000]

6 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

@emyliano2000 what's the ice cube thingy on top of the DSLR? 

It's a hotshoe 3 way spirit level for framing purposes. I only do 0 and 90 degrees so I only needed a 2 way but I couldn't find any so I bought the 3 way.

[Ouroboros]

5 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

It's a hotshoe 3 way spirit level for framing purposes. I only do 0 and 90 degrees so I only needed a 2 way but I couldn't find any so I bought the 3 way.

OK.  Thanks. I tend to frame mine at any angle that suits, for astro pics that is. But perhaps you use it for terrestrial photography. For that I can imagine it's quite useful. I'm often finding my horizon line is not level with my old Canon 450D. I bet it comes as standard on modern digitals. It's certainly on my little Lummix camera. 

[emyliano2000]

On 09/05/2019 at 14:45, Astroscot2 said:

Nice set up, im looking at something similar and torn between something truly portable like the Ioptron Skyguider pro or going down the route of a small EQ mount with the option of guiding both axis ?

The EMQ35 seems to be an upgrade of the EQ32 pro but ive not seen any reviews.  By the time you upgrade the EQ3-2 tripod your not far off the price of an EQM35.

 

Look forward to seeing some more of your photos with this set up.

 

Mark

If you wanna get an eq3 pro here's one on gumtree

https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/skywatcher-eq3-goto-mount-and-tripod/1339656559?utm_source=savedsearches&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GT.TRIGGER.SA&utm_content=none&utm_source=savedsearches&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GT.TRIGGER.SA&utm_content=none

[Astroscot2]

Thanks for the heads up, ideal but too far for collection unfortunately.

Mark

[Allinthehead]

That's a lovely natural image.