IC 1396 Elephant's Trunk Nebula - first light for new equipment

[smashing]

So after spending several months out of the game (luckily I'm not sure I missed much given the weather) I wanted to make sure I was ready for the longer nights. To make sure this was somewhat sustainable again with the demands of general life I wanted things to be able to run with a bit more autonomy than previous set ups.

With this in mind I decided on the following

• New scope upgrading from an equinox 80 to a Starfield 102 with an 0.8 reducer. This was mainly to a) budget b) get a bit more aperture because why not and c) a nice beefy R&P focuser with screw attachments for the entire imaging train   d) great reviews and e) the HEQ5 should be able to deal with it.
• Electronic focuser
• AsiAir to control it all

I hadn't quite appreciated how much bigger the Starfield was going to be compared to the equinox but it seemed to be fine on the mount in general. The Asiair and the electronic focuser are my new favourite things, I know its not as customisable as other control software ( I had APT on my previous system) but everything syncs up nicely and it just works, I especially like the auto focus routine which I can set going whilst I do other things during setup prior to polar alignment and that it sorts itself out throughout the night.

I managed to get a bit of clear sky this weekend for a proper first light attempt and managed to shoot some of the Elephant Trunk Nebula which I have not imaged before.

• Starfield 102 with 0.8 reducer
• 2600MC Pro with L-extreme
• HEQ5
• 23 x 300s lights (2 lost frames from guiding issues)
• 30 flats and dark flats
• 20 darks
• Processed in PixInsight

 

I am not massively happy with the stars and how I have combined them back in and I suspect there is more in the data to pull out but its been a while since I did much processing and this was a quick look to see what kind of data I was getting. 

 

 

Edited August 26 by smashing
Added filter

[Clarkey]

Nice result. I like the muted 'rusty' pallet. 

[saac]

Great result for a first image with your new setup @smashing. I think you are going to love using the ASiAir Plus it really is a fantastic bit of kit and the more you play with it the more it seems to deliver. I like the colour of your image as @Clarkey has noted but for me (purely personal taste)  I would have liked a few more stars. But that said I would be happy with that image, you've nailed the noise for sure.  Definitely given your new setup a good confidence check.  

Jim 

[900SL]

Nice ET. Agree on the stars. Good detail

[smashing]

7 hours ago, saac said:

Great result for a first image with your new setup @smashing. I think you are going to love using the ASiAir Plus it really is a fantastic bit of kit and the more you play with it the more it seems to deliver. I like the colour of your image as @Clarkey has noted but for me (purely personal taste)  I would have liked a few more stars. But that said I would be happy with that image, you've nailed the noise for sure.  Definitely given your new setup a good confidence check.  

Jim 

Yeah defo need more work on the stars I agree. It's my next thing to learn as I find the L-extreme mutes them a lot so I want to get some broadband data from my targets in now and try and blend it all together...should be fun.

[phantom199]

The Starfield 102 sounds like a solid upgrade, and it’s awesome that the HEQ5 can handle it well.

[smashing]

And so with some clear nights I managed to get some more data, plus some dedicated star data without the l-extreme...I'm going to go and check all the subs again as I think there were a few duff ones in there to begin with but again using a few new toolsets (the exterminator tools are very good) and keep on bashing away on it as its almost 9 hours of data so I'm sure there is much more in it.

Also first time using WBPP rather than DSS and oh my the amount of space and time it takes even on my PC which is pretty decent was somewhat of a shock.