The London Muck - Series. Victims No.2 & 3

[Daniel Karl]

Decided to play around a bit without reducer/flattener on my 130 f/6 Triplet APO.

Result was 4.5 hours of SHO under full moon with the ASI 294MM on CEM70.

Conclsiuon: I ordered another reducer/flattener - 🤣

 

And then I thought ... Bortle 9 skies - full moon, only 650mm focal length - let's try a galaxy - hahaha.

[souls33k3r]

Gives us mere mortals in Bortle 8 some hope with the galaxies. Nicely done matey. 

[CCD-Freak]

What object is "victim #2"  Looks familiar but I can't remember a catalog number.  It looks like a field I may want to image.

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by CCD-Freak

[Daniel Karl]

10 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

Gives us mere mortals in Bortle 8 some hope with the galaxies. Nicely done matey. 

Haha ... well, it took a lot of attempts in processing to get it even to this point - think that was attempt No. 7 ... next time I will get flat frames 😂

 

4 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

What object is "victim #2"  Looks familiar but I can't remember a catalog number.  It looks like a field I may want to image.

 

whoops - forgot to mention that ... it's a part of the Soul Nebula IC 1848 ... not easy to recognise from that mess - haha.

[carastro]

Marvellous from London,  Soul nebula marvellous from anywhere,

Carole 

Edited January 19, 2022 by carastro

[CCD-Freak]

Thanks....I thought that looked familiar.   I will put that on my list of interesting object to image. 

BTW....Great images despite being shot through the muck.

[scotty38]

They are great images full stop!

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, Daniel Karl said:

Decided to play around a bit without reducer/flattener on my 130 f/6 Triplet APO.

Result was 4.5 hours of SHO under full moon with the ASI 294MM on CEM70.

Conclsiuon: I ordered another reducer/flattener - 🤣

 

And then I thought ... Bortle 9 skies - full moon, only 650mm focal length - let's try a galaxy - hahaha.

Aha - another 294MM user! I'll put the same question to you that I asked to geeklee: how do you take your narrowband flats? Oiii gives me real issues, and I'm trying to understand if there's a better way l can do them. 

[TakMan]

Looking past the distortions though.... That 'Soul' close-up is a great result - love the colours and detail... well done you! 👍

D

[Daniel Karl]

@carastro Thank you, that's very kind!

@CCD-Freak The Soul Nebula really surprised me actually - I'll give that another try when my new reducer arrives.

@scotty38 Thank you ... It's kind of nice to have the London sky pollution as an excuse - haha. I think if I were to be in a dark location, I'd feel a bit of pressure - haha.

@The Lazy Astronomer Funny, that you should mention that today - haha. I'm even lazier than you, because so far I have not taken any flat frames, but I just dragged the gear out to
give IC 1848 another try with my old reducer and I was planning to get flats at the end of the night this time ... so I might be able to answer that tomorrow - or more likely have a load of
questions - haha.
I've also just seen some tilt on my first sub, but can't be bothered to try and fix that now ... I think I'll soon start a lengthy cry for help here to sort out my imaging train, because I haven't
really figured out how badly my whole setup is out of alignment yet

@TakMan Yeah - I was a bit surprised as well ... hopefully I can give that another try without distortion soon, but as things go. I'll probably end up not being able to get the colours like
that again ... it seems they turn out differently on every attempt, even with the same data - haha.

There's always another night ... (until there isn't but then I suppose I have more pressing problems) 🙂

Edited January 19, 2022 by Daniel Karl

[TakMan]

5 minutes ago, Daniel Karl said:

it seems they turn out differently on every attempt, even with the same data

Know what you mean !

😵

D

[Daniel Karl]

Tried again, this time with the old focal reducer (The Starizona Apex arrived the day after, obviously) ... bit of tilt in the imaging train as well, just to add a bit of dynamic 🤪

Managed to get 7.5 hours of data, and there is more nebulosity visible in the channels, but I like the contrast.
Still haven't managed, to get the JPGs here to look quite the same as in Photoshop - the blacks are just a tad too dark and the transition between nebulosity and background becomes too hard.
 

 

Maybe I'll get another chance with the Apex 0.65 tonight (that should almost fit the entire nebula) - but then again perhaps it's time to switch to a new victim?