M8 and M20 Mosaic

[WolfieGlos]

With the run of clear skies we had a few weeks ago, I decided to have a go at these targets to gather as much data as possible, mostly just to see what I could get even without any astro dark time.

This is an exceptionally difficult target for my location, rising above houses near a streetlight, before disappearing behind a larger building across the road from me, it is visible for no more than 1.5 hours per night; and the last 30 minutes are all affected by another LED streetlight beaming straight onto said building and straight into my scope; fortunately, this occurred before the meridian, so no time wasted with flips! But almost every sub beyond 45 minutes into the session was affected by that light, but I kept a number of them purely for more integration time. I've had to contend with a lot of gradients and light streaks in this image, both in SiriL and GIMP.

To put this in perspective; Upper Panel - 3 frames on 16th June, 21 frames on 24th June, 14 frames on 25th June (01:54:00 total) + Lower Panel - 15 frames on 15th June, 8 frames on 21st June, 27 frames on 22nd June (02:30:00 total)

Given the constraints, I'm reasonably happy with the result. I did lose a lot of the fainter outer shell of M8 with the noise reduction, but it was so noisy I decided it wasn't worth worrying about. I also suspect that M20 has lost a lot of its characteristic blues due to both LP and a lack of integration time. I won't be able to gather any more data on this now, due to the Moon phase and the later rising of these targets. Perhaps I'll make this a multi-year image? We'll see 🙂 

So this is a 1x2 Mosaic comprising of 38 x 180s for the top panel, and 50 x 180s for the lower panel, individually stacked with SiriL and then combined with ASTAP's mosaic algorithm. Edited in SIRIL, Starnet, AstroDeNoisePY and GIMP.

Equipment - Canon EOS 800D (modded) + Optolong L'enhance + Starfield 102ED + 0.8 Reducer
Mount - Sky Watcher HEQ5 with Belt Mod, captures with NINA

Total of 88 x 180s frames (04:24:00) at ISO-800, with 50 bias, 40 flats, 26 darks.

I ran some sharpening with both Wavelets and also tried SiriL's "new" deconvolution for the first time, seems to be pretty good for the relatively short amount of time in this image 🙂

Comments / criticism welcome 🙂

[Roy Foreman]

Considering the adverse conditions you were working with, this is a great image. Good sharpness and contrast. Well done.

[alan potts]

That's a superb image it's low down here and I am 11 degrees better off than you. It is a target I want to get on to but weather has been very poor since April, it was clear last night but look where the Moon is.

Alan

[Elp]

12 minutes ago, alan potts said:

look where the Moon is

Tell me about it, always where you don't want it to be and always when it's a clear night.

Excellent colours in the image, I can just about get trifid to plate solve but as it's just above a tree can't image it for long if at all.

[whipdry]

Think you've done a good job on this, well done... I had a go at it last year with SHO filters, was surprised how good the subs were being so low in the sky, southern england.

Only thing I noticed was a small amount of colour misalignment on the stars... though better looking than on my SHO effort!

Guess I should post mine.

Peter

[WolfieGlos]

6 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

Considering the adverse conditions you were working with, this is a great image. Good sharpness and contrast. Well done.

Thanks Roy ! I was surprised how well the detail came out for such a short amount of time, so happy with that  

3 hours ago, alan potts said:

That's a superb image it's low down here and I am 11 degrees better off than you. It is a target I want to get on to but weather has been very poor since April, it was clear last night but look where the Moon is.

Alan

Thank you Alan! Yes, that Moon typically cropped up at the wrong time, last 2 nights were clear but it was right over this area. Hopefully you get a chance soon.

3 hours ago, Elp said:

Tell me about it, always where you don't want it to be and always when it's a clear night.

Excellent colours in the image, I can just about get trifid to plate solve but as it's just above a tree can't image it for long if at all.

Thanks Elp! I took the view that if I image these for an hour a night, I can then move to an alternative target and collect data on 2 targets in 1 night; that's how many clear nights we had in succession with no Moon! Very unusual, but fortunate to take advantage of it. That's a shame about that tree for you.

1 hour ago, whipdry said:

Think you've done a good job on this, well done... I had a go at it last year with SHO filters, was surprised how good the subs were being so low in the sky, southern england.

Only thing I noticed was a small amount of colour misalignment on the stars... though better looking than on my SHO effort!

Guess I should post mine.

Peter

Thanks Peter!

I didn't notice anything with the stars, care to show an example? I wonder if that had to do with some final colour balancing...which I did after I re-imported the stars.

Definitely post it, we don't see many from the UK so be great to see other peoples efforts !