the elephant in close up

[powerlord]

This is my first project for the asi1600 pro. Only 3 sessions so far, and short nights. Doing in SHO. Last night screwed up positioning though, hence just doing a cropped in edit for now to see how its getting on. Oii is a struggle as there's so little I'm going to need a lot more integration. Ha is nice though and the Sii is coming on too.

I want to get the the point I can actually SEE the elephant head.. so quite a bit to go yet.

Anyway, always learning - today marks the 6 month spot I think since I got a telescope. If someone told me I'd be capturing stuff like this 6 months later I'd have said they were having a laugh.

 

[Lee_P]

Great picture, especially as it's a work in progress. Impressive for six months too!

[Tommohawk]

Looks great... you obviously have the basics going well, guiding and focusing etc. 

Positioning and framing is often tricky especially if yore working on a big subject using a longer FL - centration and framing becomes more critical especially if combining multiple sessions.

TBH as with many of these "named" nebula I often struggle to see the object in question. I think this is the "Elephant's Trunk"... is there supposed to be a head there??

[powerlord]

Yes, it is almost impossible to see elephant head in most pics I've seen.

When/if I Get it good enough to show it I'll point it out. 

Framing wise it's my own fault. Asiair is great for it as you just give it a pic from the last session. But last night I tripped over the power cord twice.. Meaning I had to start again from beginning.. Home mount, goto, setup filters.. I must have did a goto ic1396 the last time rather than my framing of it. I'll bin last night's basically, but I integrated it tonight just to see if I could.

 

This is the first time I've tried to stack over multiple sessions, also different gains, and of course different flats, etc so a bit of a learning curve!

Edited July 19, 2021 by powerlord

[Tommohawk]

Just now, powerlord said:

When/if I Get it good enough to show it I'll point it out. 

I'm sure it'll be when not if, given how much progress youve made in 6 months!

[powerlord]

@Tommohawk you were asking about where the elephant is - here's the wikipedia pic of the middle bit, and my doodle of the elephant head on top of it, with the original underneath.