Cone nebula, fox fur and christmas tree in Ha

[GordonH]

Hi all

Finally managed to get out and do some imaging last night, not completely problem free though, after about an hour during a long session from 7pm to 7am I had some condensation on the camera optical window so I had to take it off and give it a blast with my girlfriends hair drier for five minutes, then had to refocus so half an hour or so wasted. Clear sky all night although imaging low in the sky was out of the question due to misty sky, the moon was high up as well which meant lots of sky glow and the ability to do my Telegraph crossword without artificial lights. Any way enough of the excuses.

I had originally planned to do this in colour but after starting the OIII something didn't look right in the image and I eventually tracked it down to condensation on the camera window, once I had sorted this out and refocused the subject was heading towards the mist so only Ha for this one I'm afraid. It is 8x10 minutes unguided with the Takahashi BRC-250 and Starlight Xpress H36. The image is cropped as there is now some vignetting in the corners since putting the PDF focuser in the image train (that is a small sacrifice to pay). Simple auto dark subtraction was used in Maxim DL, no flats or bias frames were used

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon

[MikeD]

Nice job, wish I had the FOV to do this one.

Mike.

[Erwin Kats]

nice one gordon !!!!

the BRC is doing a great job i see.

btw, did you try in photoshop->filter-> sharpen ( smar sharpen or so )?

because it looks like its not very sharp.

[narrowbandpaul]

hi gordon...

very nice image....planning to add the other 'interesting e-lines' to the image!

i heard you were talking to douglas, my friend, at astrofest. He's quite the character!

and I saw your image of M106/97 on the NBI site. Very nice but I take it theres is b****r all S[iI]

Keep the images coming...something to aspire to.

Paul

ps how goes the guiding?

[GordonH]

Hi Paul

I will be doing the other emission lines for this image at a future date but with the way the weather is going it may have to wait till later in the year when Monoceros comes round again. There is actually some SII in the Owl nebula but it is much fainter than the Ha and OIII, but I only managed to get 4 sub frames so this is another one for my hit list for the future. Still haven't had a go at guiding yet but I will probably have a go at it in the near future with PHD as that seems easy and straight forward

Best wishes

Gordon

[narrowbandpaul]

PHD is dead easy...even I could manage it.

we still havent had a decent night since october really....wanting to try the 8"F9 RC revelation for some hi res stuff...may have to be M82 now...

as rdc says shooting O[iII] for planetaries is like shooting fish in a barrell...

Hope you get some more clear skies...

Paul