Messier 27 - Remote capture

[Hughsie]

I have always wanted to capture an image of M27 but my location at home makes it difficult being at the bottom of a hill with houses and trees in the way.

So, earlier this year I joined iTelescope with the aim of being able to capture those targets not accessible from home or the UK. This is one such image. Captured on Friday 4th September from the Astrocamp observatory in Nerpio, Spain using a 12.5 inch Planewave corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph and SBIG Universal camera (equipment I can only dream about).

15 x 300s Ha Bin 1x1
14 x 300s Oiii Bin 1x1

Processed in PixInsight. This colour was achieved using the following combinations in Pixelmath;

R channel - 100% Ha
G channel - 50% Ha + 50% Oiii
B channel - 100% Oiii

Thank you for checking in.

John

[Mick H]

8 minutes ago, Hughsie said:

I have always wanted to capture an image of M27

Hi Hugh, I saw M27 visually last week with my WO binoviewers for the first time and thought wow.

But that is a lovely image well done.

[RobertI]

Crikey John, that's a top quality image. Well done! I bet you had fun processing that. Can you say anything about the equipment and exposures?

Edit: Just seen the level of detail you can get from zooming in the full image - extraordinary.

Edited September 6, 2020 by RobertI

[Hughsie]

25 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Crikey John, that's a top quality image. Well done! I bet you had fun processing that. Can you say anything about the equipment and exposures?

Edit: Just seen the level of detail you can get from zooming in the full image - extraordinary.

Hi Rob,

What I can say is a 12.5 inch planewave astrograph would cost me my marriage to buy! 
 

I took 5 minutes subs, 15 in Ha and 14 in Oiii. ITelescope calibrate all your subs as the image run progresses so processing was such much easier not having to create master flats, bias and darks. You might think that you are charged for the calibration time but the company are pretty fair and only charge for the actual exposure time so 29 x 5 mins.

The data was a delight to work with but lots of masks were needed. I wanted to try and bring out the faint outer shell of the gas region and it’s a fine balance between too bright a background and no outer shell. More data should hopefully fix that.

 

[RobertI]

An impressive rig then! The outer shell is coming through nicely, looking forward to seeing part 2 (if you end up going for more data).