Elephant's Trunk Nebula with OSC from Bortle 8

[Lee_P]

I'm having a good time pushing what I can achieve with an OSC camera (plus L-eXtreme) from my city centre location. I think this is my best attempt so far. I push the data hard, which isn't to everybody's taste, but I quite like the "punchy" effect.

 

* May and June 2021
* Bristol, UK (Bortle 8 )
* Telescope: Askar FRA400 f/5.6 Quintuplet APO Astrograph
* Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC-PRO
* Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme
* Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G
* Guide: William Optics 32mm; ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
* Control: ASIAIR PRO
* Software: PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom, Topaz DeNoise AI
* 480 x 120 seconds
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Total integration time: 16 hours
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By Lee Pullen

 

Huge thanks to @Luke Newbould for making an excellent PixInsight tutorial, which I used as the basis for my processing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV6ObLVRvNk

 

 

[Jamgood]

Fantastic! Well done.

[peter shah]

I really like that....a wonderful result

 

[Rustang]

Stunning, beautiful colours 👏👏

Edited June 11, 2021 by Rustang

[bob-c]

A lovely image  this.

 

 Bob.

[Ouroboros]

Cracking image! Leaps out of the screen. I’m quite amazed that such an image is possible in Bortle 8. It kinda confounds the statement that mono is required for such conditions. 

[Luke Newbould]

@Lee_P WOW! - That looks absolutely awesome mate, I love that you've really worked the data hard and got every ounce out of it - extremely inspiring stuff!!

Thank you so much for crediting me too mate, I really do appreciate that you'd do that! 👍

[Lee_P]

On 11/06/2021 at 15:58, Ouroboros said:

Cracking image! Leaps out of the screen. I’m quite amazed that such an image is possible in Bortle 8. It kinda confounds the statement that mono is required for such conditions. 

Thanks! I get that mono is objectively better, but when I hear people say that you have to go mono if you're in a city, I kinda want to show them what can be achieved with OSC and an L-eXtreme... 

 

21 hours ago, Luke Newbould said:

@Lee_P WOW! - That looks absolutely awesome mate, I love that you've really worked the data hard and got every ounce out of it - extremely inspiring stuff!!

Thank you so much for crediting me too mate, I really do appreciate that you'd do that! 👍

Haha no worries, I've been trying to get nice blues into my images for a while, and your tutorial completely cracked that one for me 😁

[Lee_P]

This photo appears in the December 2021 issue of Sky at Night Magazine 😃

[FranckiM06]

It is very nice image with lot of details

[GrumpiusMaximus]

This is spectacular - absolutely spectacular.  Unfortunately this now means I have essentially no excuse in my Bortle 5 sky.