North America Nebula with Fuji XT3

[AndySuffolk]

Hi,

I'm totally new to astrophotography having done landscape/wildlife for a few years. Totally loving the technical challenge it presents so far!

I just wanted to share my first image, the North Americ Nebula,  taken with the Fuji XT3 and 55-200mm lens at 120mm/f4, using the iOptron SkyGuide Pro. I took 20 x 2 minutes subs from my house in Suffolk, UK (Bortle 4 skies).

I tried my best to get the polar alignment spot on but its a challenge - got a guide scope and camera on the way so hoping SharpCap will help with this, along with PHD2 for guiding.

Followed the general processing steps from Trevor@Astrobackyard (forgive the refraction lines on the stars - couldn't resist!). 

Seeing some elongation of the stars so assuming the PA was off a bit or maybe 2 mins on this tracker without guiding is the issue? Any comments or advice would be appreciated.

Anyway, great to be along for the ride and really enjoying reading what other are getting up to.

Thanks,

Andy

[MarkAR]

Great start, I think once you have the mechanics of polar alignment and tracking/guiding fine tuned you'll be posting up some great images.

[The Admiral]

That's a great first image and it shows how well the Fuji's detect the Ha. What did you use to stack them with, as a matter of interest?

I think the star elongation might be due to coma rather than polar alignment as the elongation appears more radial than in one direction.

Ian

Edited May 17, 2020 by The Admiral

[AndySuffolk]

Hi  - thanks for the comments - very encouraging! I used Deep Sky Stacker and then processed in PS.

Cheers,
Andy

[The Admiral]

Does DSS process the Fuji XT3 raws or did you convert to dng,  tiff or jpg first?

Ian

[AndySuffolk]

I converted to Tiff's first in Lightroom. 

Andy

Edited May 17, 2020 by AndySuffolk