North America nebula in SHO

[Tommohawk]

I chanced on Martin Fransson's image of North America nebula in SHO posted back in 2018, and was struck by the nice looking SII signal.. and with a couple of clear night though it would be worth a go. I'm set up with my 200P at the moment though so would have to be a close up.  

A couple of snags - always seem to be the way! First I had to extend the mount legs fully in order to track far enough - not great for stability. Also on the second night it was pretty blowy and really knocked things about a bit. I stacked both sets of data separately and together in APP, and although there was a tad less detail in the combined stack and the stars were definitely a bit bigger I went with that version because the image was definitely less noisy.

Also I used PHD2 multi star alignment for the first time and between gusts it. did seem to produce better guiding. Tricky to say exactly how much improvement given the conditions but it looked like it would give maybe 0.6" rather than my usual 0.8" RMS. But maybe that's just a measuring issue - the multi star guide might simulate better guiding, if that makes sense. either way the HEQ5 is punching above it's weight given the scope and chunky ADM dual mount + 14Kg counteweights.

So: HEQ5,  SW200P, SW CC, ASI1600cool, ZWO NB filters (newer series) 44 x 300s Ha, 47 x 300s SII, 51 x 300s OIII. APP and PS, slight crop.  Would have like to add RGB stars but ran out of time - next time maybe.

Hope you like it, thanks for looking. 

 

 

[peter shah]

super shot Tom...colours are bright and stars are pin....wonderful work

 

[Roy Foreman]

Like the colours and the framing. Nice image.

[Tommohawk]

Thanks both very much and thanks for the likes. I must admit I was very pleased with the result, and weather permitting will try for some other SHO targets. The Eagle nebula and Pillars has eluded me again this year.. curses!

Now I've retired, so next year I hope to spend some time in Spain and fill my boots. Well.... fill my hard drive anyhow. But who knows.

Here's the StarNet starless version just for interest. If I get a moment I might whizz through the RGB stars and add those.

 

[Davey-T]

Nice one Tom, I'm still trying to get to grips with APP and my new ZWO ASI2600MC.

Dave

[Tommohawk]

Hi Dave - thanks for that! Just noticed some nasty star artefacts on the rough 'n ready starless version - wil need to sort that before adding RGB stars.

On 10/09/2021 at 22:23, Davey-T said:

Nice one Tom, I'm still trying to get to grips with APP and my new ZWO ASI2600MC.

Dave

Are you  having any particular issues with APP? 

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, Tommohawk said:

Are you  having any particular issues with APP? 

Not really, it's just remembering to tick the right boxes, I've been using Maxim for years and it requires practically no human intervention compared to APP, watched a good tutorial and managed a decent widefield rendition of Horsehead and Flame that needs more data, should get some soon hopefully, I was up late / early recently an Orion was showing well.

ATB

Dave

[Tommohawk]

TBH with APP I use the default settings I think for pretty much everything, except that I untick "neutralze background". Might not work for your set up though.

BTW the other thing of interest about this image is that I didn't use any flats. There must be vignetting but it doesn't seem to show.