The Dark Shark

[mackiedlm]

After over 6 weeks without a break I finally got some clear sky. Also no moon so decided to try my very first Dark nebula.

The weather did not really co-operate and between passing clouds, me forgetting what to do and some technical issues because of a new imaging PC this ended up at only 3.5 hours. I think it would need at least double that to start bringing structure to the nebula. But at least its a start and some of the nebula is showing. Not sure why the brightest stars are bloated? 

SW Evostar 80ED, ASI2600mc, NEQ6, Optolong L-Pro, 70 x 180s

C&C Appreciated

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by mackiedlm

[Ags]

Very shark-like!

[megrez]

Impressive!

[simmo39]

Very nice! Like that a lot. 

[tooth_dr]

13 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

I think it would need at least double that to start bringing structure to the nebula

I honestly think this is superb, and wouldnt change it.  The bloated stars dont detract at all.  Well done on a fantastic image.

[mackiedlm]

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

I honestly think this is superb, and wouldnt change it.  The bloated stars dont detract at all.  Well done on a fantastic image.

Thanks for that Adam, much appreciated.

[Crackabarrel]

Beautiful, nicely done.

[tomato]

“Big fish, swallow you whole…”

Great image👍

[geeklee]

Fantastic @mackiedlm Love the blue reflection area on the shark's "head" and the dust looks great too.

Edited October 13, 2021 by geeklee

[mackiedlm]

Thanks for the positive comments folks - much appreciated.

[mrflib]

This looks great!

How do you go about framing a Dark Neb so well? Not tried on yet

[mackiedlm]

Hi Peter, thanks for that.

I did this using Platesolving in APT connected to stellarium.

In stellarium you set up an "Occular" for your sensor and scope which gives you a frame - confirm the orientation of the camera and put that in too. Then fit the frame on the image in stellarium and send the co-ordinates to APT and then Goto those co-ordinates. A couple of "Aim and goto++" and you are there. Which is just as well because there was absolutely NO SIGN of it in the 180s subs.

Platesolving is like magic!! 

[Xiga]

Very well done indeed. Great job on the processing, on what is a very tough target. 

What are your skies like? I'm guessing they must be pretty decent. 

[mackiedlm]

Just now, Xiga said:

Very well done indeed. Great job on the processing, on what is a very tough target. 

What are your skies like? I'm guessing they must be pretty decent. 

Thanks Ciaran, I appreciate the comment.

I think it was the toughest thing I've processed so far.

I'm about 25 km east of Galway, pretty rural. The map say Bortle 4-5 but theres a dirty great sodium street light about 20 yards from my scope. The scope has  it has to be there to avoid a LED security light that comes on at random times. I set up a blind to shade the scope and that, together with the L-Pro seems to do the trick. The light dome from Galway is quite low to my west.

[peter shah]

stunning!....beautifully processed

[kirkster501]

Lovely!  Well done.  Would love to be able to do this too from my OBS but needs better than Bortle 4/5 what I have to contend with.  When I tried before there's nothing there.

[CCD-Freak]

Great image......It looks like a small barking dog to me as well as a shark (^8

 

 

[mackiedlm]

14 hours ago, CCD-Freak said:

Great image......It looks like a small barking dog to me as well as a shark (^8

 

 

Thanks for that.

My daughter sees an aggressive biting rat with blue ears pulled back flat on its head. !

 

David.