Last chance saloon: Iris Nebula

[900SL]

Nearly the close of the nighttime astro-season here, not been the best with the weather for 23/24.  Have to say I miss those Saudi B2 skies

Managed to get a couple of hours last night from a B5 area west of Helsinki, through high clouds and before the night fog decended at 1 am. Seeing wasn't great. Had three deer in the yard again for a while though  

533 OSC, 90mm APO, 60s exposures, not calibrated yet. I'll reprocess after weeding out the poor subframes and will read up on how best to process this target.

'DON'T CLIP THE DARK' will be high on the list, I'm guessing

 

[900SL]

Too much gas! Must throttle back!

Challenging target. I'll try the Iris again later this year at a longer FL

 

 

Edited April 10 by 900SL

[Elp]

I have a love hate relationship with this target, absolutely love the look of it, hate the separation task of the dust cloud. Never done it justice myself even though the last full project on it I had 24 hours of data.

[900SL]

5 minutes ago, Elp said:

I have a love hate relationship with this target, absolutely love the look of it, hate the separation task of the dust cloud. Never done it justice myself even though the last full project on it I had 24 hours of data.

I can relate to that. It has certainly spurred me on to getting more data.  I might try a starnet separation and work on the stars and nebula seperately

[WolfieGlos]

Nice job so far, can't wait to see the final process. I tried it with about 8 hours with a DSLR, it took numerous attempts to process and masking of the core to do it. It was difficult, especially as a beginner at the time.

Are you not using the 533mm anymore? I know the weather's been rubbish, but wondered how you were getting on with it?

[900SL]

1 hour ago, WolfieGlos said:

Nice job so far, can't wait to see the final process. I tried it with about 8 hours with a DSLR, it took numerous attempts to process and masking of the core to do it. It was difficult, especially as a beginner at the time.

Are you not using the 533mm anymore? I know the weather's been rubbish, but wondered how you were getting on with it?

Thanks! More than happy with the 533MM, but I've only got narrowband filters so far, so for the broadband stuff I'm using the 533MC with an L3 UV/IR filter

Have to say it's easier to image and process, but noisier  😀  and when there's only a couple of hours OSC is a simple choice

Edited April 10 by 900SL

[Martthebass]

Ditto on the ‘frustration’. I’ve not done this one justice, pretty much the same kit as you. Never seem to get the correct balance of light and dark…you’ve made a better job of it than me.

[900SL]

2 hours ago, Martthebass said:

Ditto on the ‘frustration’. I’ve not done this one justice, pretty much the same kit as you. Never seem to get the correct balance of light and dark…you’ve made a better job of it than me.

I'd say it was a tie, Mart   Mine is a bit heavy handed on the processing. I'll have another go tomorrow, beer o clock now!

[Martthebass]

2 hours ago, 900SL said:

I'd say it was a tie, Mart   Mine is a bit heavy handed on the processing. I'll have another go tomorrow, beer o clock now!

Cheers, just hoping we get a few hours of clear sky before the astronomical darkness ends in these parts.