LDN1251 and a new belt...

[Sterrenland]

Having been struggling for a while with poor guiding and elongated stars I decided to upgrade my mount with the Rowan belt drive. Last night was the first time I got to try it out and I can only say I'm amazed at the difference it's made. From guiding between 1.0 and 2.0 RMS for months, I immediately got 0.5 last night and my stars were pretty round.

Probably not the easiest target to pick to try out the belt upgrade, but I fancied trying to capture a 'real' dark nebula and decided to go for LDN1251 as it was far enough away from the moon. Considering the moon was at over 70% I was amazed at getting just short of 4 hours of data. Previously the mount had struggled settling after dithering whereas last night the modification seemed to make settling sooooo much quicker and reliable. Using an L-Pro filter helped a little with the lack of contrast caused by the moon.

As my first 'proper' dark nebula I found the processing a challenge...trying to separate the dark dust and process it against the background of stars and the stars themselves. Having separated the stars and nebula through masks I've done my best to highlight the dust without overdoing it. Anyway, here's my first go at LDN1251.

[simmo39]

V nice!