Swan, Dumbbell (UPDATED) , Ring Nebula & Saturn 9/06/24

[PeterStudz]

Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. Southampton urban garden, Bortle 7, between 2:20am & 3:10am (for the DSO’s),  4:30am for Saturn, 9th June 2024. Transparency good, seeing excellent. BST StarGuiders. iPhone 14 Pro held to the eyepiece using a no-brand smartphone adapter. 

DSO’s captured using the AstroShader app. Saturn a 40sec video, 4K at 60fps. Stacked on the phone using the app VideoStack. Cropped and edited. All editing & processing on phone or iPad using the stock camera app, WaveletCam, LightRoom & SnapSeed.

I did the DSO in a bit of a rush. It was largely unplanned, but after seeing M17 (omega or Swan nebula - to me it looks more like a swan) for the first time from my back garden I decided to try and take a picture. There’s an observation report link at the end. Although I didn’t mention taking snaps of the DSO’s. And to be honest almost forgot about them.

For M17 I’d left in the Astronomik UHC filter as visually I really couldn’t see it without. Maybe should have also tried to take an image without to see the difference, but by then it was 2:30am and I only had about 30 mins before it got even lighter. So, I went back to M27 and took an image of that. By the time I’d gone back onto M57 it was 3:10am and I was into nautical twilight. And the change in sky brightness was obvious so I wasn’t hopeful. 

There’s a lot going on in M17, even some nebulosity coming through around and under the swans “tail”. For M27 I initially went too far, so I’ve included both! Personally I like the star field just as much as the Dumbbell. You can even the reddish “shell” and “wings”. With M57 and despite the sky being so light you can see the central star, another star in the central area and just about see a star on the rim. Easier to see in the zoomed/cropped image.  Everything would obviously be better with a dark sky.

Settings in AstroShader for the DSO were all the same - Number of exposures: 25;  Exposure time: 6 sec;  ISO: 1310. Which gives a total time of 2.5 minutes - hardly a lot! If that time is increased it would certainly be better. 

I took a video of Saturn just before I called it a morning - about 4:30am - so the sky was well light. Not great for contrast and image, but I’ve illustrated that with a blue background. And it’s obviously still low in the sky. If nothing else you can see how edge on those rings are! 
 

M17 (Swan/Omega Nebula) with Astronomik UHC Filter

Initial M27 (Dumbbell Nebula) - gone to far!

 

UPDATED M27 (Dumbbell Nebula) 

 

M57 (Ring Nebula)

 

 

Saturn in Twilight

 

Observation Report

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 08:49 by PeterStudz
UPDATED Dumbbell

[bosun21]

Nice captures @PeterStudz. Looks like Saturns rings are fully edge on. I used the Cassini division to set up focus when imaging it. I'll have to try something else this apparition.

Edited Friday at 19:58 by bosun21

[DAT]

lovely images, what focal length ep did you use to capture the dso?

I am struggling a bit with the app to get rid of star trails, even when I limit the number of exposures and length as recommended by the app.  In fact, I can't even see any stars if I limit exposure. Perhaps I should use a longer fl ep? At the moment I am trying to image m13,  would you be able to suggest a focal length and some settings on astroshader please? (I have seen some great pictures you have taken previously...)

[PeterStudz]

13 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Nice captures @PeterStudz. Looks like Saturns rings are fully edge on. I used the Cassini division to set up focus when imaging it. I'll have to try something else this apparition.

Thanks! Interestingly, although it’s obviously summer, I did as much that night than I’ve done for the whole of this yr so far. And not for want of trying. Now I wish I’d got up a bit earlier, 

On Saturn I could visually, just occasionally, make out a small, thin, gap between the planet disc and the rings. You might be able to focus on that. If you can see it well then at least you’ll know when seeing is good. 

 

[PeterStudz]

4 hours ago, DAT said:

lovely images, what focal length ep did you use to capture the dso?

I am struggling a bit with the app to get rid of star trails, even when I limit the number of exposures and length as recommended by the app.  In fact, I can't even see any stars if I limit exposure. Perhaps I should use a longer fl ep? At the moment I am trying to image m13,  would you be able to suggest a focal length and some settings on astroshader please? (I have seen some great pictures you have taken previously...)

Thanks. Although after you post I went back to see what I’d done and realised that I’d over-sharped M27. I’ll give it another go!

For M27 & M57 it was definitely a 12mm eyepiece. M17 25mm I’m almost certain. I find it best to use a low magnification (at least at first) and get in as many stars as you can. Then crop after capture. With only a few stars the app can struggle to align. So the more stars you can get in over the FOV the better. Obviously M13 has a lot of stars, but ideally you want some spread over the FOV. I’m using an EQ platform, but that’s only for visual and there’s a little drift. With this I can get a single exposure of around 30 seconds using the stock camera app, but here AstroShader was giving a total of 2.5 minutes without significant star trails. Much more than that then I do sometimes have problems with odd star shapes. 

If you can’t see stars on the screen then it sounds like your exposure is too short. For the above DSO’s the app setting I used were…

Number of exposures: 25;  Exposure time: 6 sec;  ISO: 1310; White Balance: 3277K; Alignment function: Light

I’ve also included a screen shot of the phones live view with AstroShader running. It’s of M13 when I was testing the app just over a yr ago. It has improved since then but you should see something like this on the screen as you are doing your capture. Hope this helps. Please let us know how you get on. 

[DAT]

4 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

Thanks. Although after you post I went back to see what I’d done and realised that I’d over-sharped M27. I’ll give it another go!

For M27 & M57 it was definitely a 12mm eyepiece. M17 25mm I’m almost certain. I find it best to use a low magnification (at least at first) and get in as many stars as you can. Then crop after capture. With only a few stars the app can struggle to align. So the more stars you can get in over the FOV the better. Obviously M13 has a lot of stars, but ideally you want some spread over the FOV. I’m using an EQ platform, but that’s only for visual and there’s a little drift. With this I can get a single exposure of around 30 seconds using the stock camera app, but here AstroShader was giving a total of 2.5 minutes without significant star trails. Much more than that then I do sometimes have problems with odd star shapes. 

If you can’t see stars on the screen then it sounds like your exposure is too short. For the above DSO’s the app setting I used were…

Number of exposures: 25;  Exposure time: 6 sec;  ISO: 1310; White Balance: 3277K; Alignment function: Light

I’ve also included a screen shot of the phones live view with AstroShader running. It’s of M13 when I was testing the app just over a yr ago. It has improved since then but you should see something like this on the screen as you are doing your capture. Hope this helps. Please let us know how you get on. 

That is super helpful, thank you. What I expected (I was using a 9mm) so will back off to 11-18mm and see what happens.

here are the two photos I took ( unprocessed and processed), it’s only an IPhone SE but I know it can get a lot better. I did not bother cropping….

Thanks for the advice

[PeterStudz]

3 hours ago, DAT said:

That is super helpful, thank you. What I expected (I was using a 9mm) so will back off to 11-18mm and see what happens.

here are the two photos I took ( unprocessed and processed), it’s only an IPhone SE but I know it can get a lot better. I did not bother cropping….

Thanks for the advice

Hmmm… that certainly doesn’t look right and hasn’t aligned at all! I sometimes get a little trailing and/or odd shaped stars. Maybe try it on an area of sky that has better scattering of stars just to see if you can get it aligned. I believe that the developer is on https://www.cloudynights.com you could also try asking there if you are a member - I hardly ever go there!

[DAT]

Yes, I think I will give it another go before I got straight to the developer, there are a number of different things I could try. I will also try not zooming in. Let’s see

[PeterStudz]

2 minutes ago, DAT said:

Yes, I think I will give it another go before I got straight to the developer, there are a number of different things I could try. I will also try not zooming in. Let’s see

I never (or have never tried) to zoom in using the app. So that’s definitely something I’d try. One of the advantages of these light nights is that it gives you an excuse to try these things without the worry that it’ll get in the way of observing.