A new beginning - M81 and NGC6888

[hjw]

Hi everyone,

I has been almost three years since I last posted here, or did any serious astrophotography for this matter. One major reason was that I relocated from Australia back to Germany. All the hassle during Covid and waiting for equipment to arrive. I have also upgraded some equipment (DSLR to ASI1600 and filters for example) I then spend the first year in Germany to build a permanent setup in my back yard.

 

And over the last few nights I decided to test the equipment. Guiding is not working and I am pretty sure it is the guide camera (waiting for a new one). But I did have a go at the Bode's Galaxy (M81) in LRGB. 20x 60sec L and 20x 120sec in RGB each. Equipment control with N.I.N.A., stacking with DSS and some quick processing with Photoshop.

 

With the moon doing what he does best - washing out the sky, I wanted to see what narrowband can do. I have heard you can ignore a full moon Target was NGC6888 - my first ever narrow band image. I took 20 x 180sec each of H, S and O and mapped hydrogen to red, oxygen to green and sulphur to blue, just because I like it better than the Hubble palette.

 

Overall, I am quite happy with initial results. Looking forward to get guiding sorted and am very happy to be back in the hobby. Processing will be the biggest upcoming challenge.

Thanks for your patience and clear skies!

[beka]

18 hours ago, hjw said:

...build a permanent setup in my back yard.

Greetings  hjw, could I just ask what material did you use for  your dome? 

Best

[hjw]

I used a 3mm HDF boards and covered them with heavy duty truck tarp (PVC).