M57 - The Ring Nebula and extras.

[Taman]

This image turned out to have a couple of extra features which I didn't know about at the time. IC 1296 a 15th magnitude barred galaxy and a faint outer shell around the nebula itself. 

Stretching the image to show everything completely blew out the nebula. Also as the Ring Nebula is very small, I wanted to increase the image scale.

In the end, I tripled the resolution using drizzling and processed two images, one for the core of the nebula and the other for everything else. These were blended together for the final cropped image. I didn't even need a star mask!

This is my first successful attempt at M57. Maybe next time I'll take the focal reducer off. 🙂

 

55 x 120s, with darks, flats and dark flats. Total exposure time, 1 hour 50 minutes.

Stacked and drizzled with DSS, stretched with Siril and final processing with Photoshop CS6.

11" SCT at f6.3 , ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera (gain 126, temp -12C), Optolong L-Pro filter.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

[x6gas]

That's a very nice capture - well done.

[ultranova]

Nice colours, and the 3 main stars in the nebula are clearly defined,

well done 

Paul

[MarkAR]

Well done.

[Taman]

1 hour ago, ultranova said:

Nice colours, and the 3 main stars in the nebula are clearly defined,

well done 

Paul

I was surprised at the detail, especially as we don't have dark skies at the moment. I think the secret weapon is the Optolong filter! 

[ultranova]

Hi your right about the filter, i was trying out my new camera ..with the optolong l enhance on Thursday..well pleased with it

Paul

[Taman]

5 hours ago, ultranova said:

Hi your right about the filter, i was trying out my new camera ..with the optolong l enhance on Thursday..well pleased with it

Paul

I'm looking forward to trying out the filter with some planetary imaging later in the year. I have a feeling it will do rather well!