Struggling With Soul Nebula? (CR 34)

[wesdon1]

Hi all. Basically my question is, what would you suggest is sufficient total imaging time for a half decent Soul Nebula image? I gathered around 2 hours on it a few nights back and although visible, it just doesn't seem to want to "pop" out? It's really dim after stacking and I'm having to over stretch the data to see anything half decent, but the over stretching ruins the rest of the image. I tried it several months ago and had the exact same experience? Conversely I imaged the nearby Heart Nebula ( which is exact same magnitude, +6.5 ) and it was bursting out the screen? What am I missing?

I used a 66/400ED refractor, a 7nm/7nm Ha and Oiii L-Extreme filter, in a Bortle 7.

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Clear Skies, Wes.

[Elp]

Sub lengths and camera?

[smashing]

I was well into 4 odd hours with my DSLR to get even anything half decent 

[Elp]

Optics will have a factor, I've done it in 1.5h as a test with the lextreme and at F2 6 inch aperture.

My long project was near 22 hours mostly in mono, I supplemented it with 2 odd hours of colour lex data, again F2 but with the SY135 lens which is 60mm aperture or near enough.

[Elp]

Sky transparency can cause issues, you may not be able to see thin high cloud but it can play havoc with contrast. Lack of astronomical darkness will also do similar as will the moon.

[Pompey Monkey]

You are missing dark skies and a mono camera.

Money can get you both.

I'll get my hat...

[alacant]

1 hour ago, wesdon1 said:

L-Extreme filter, in a Bortle 7

Try a UHC instead. Still does a good job of separating the red and green, but much quicker and without the monotonous two colour palatte.

e.g. eos700d, ~70x4min @ ISO800, using this filter.

Worth a try?

Cheerts and HTH

 

[AstroMuni]

1 hour ago, wesdon1 said:

Conversely I imaged the nearby Heart Nebula ( which is exact same magnitude, +6.5 ) and it was bursting out the screen? What am I missing?

Thats really odd. You would expect that both nebulae would show up in more or less similar intensity. Have you tried doing both Heart & Soul on the same night to compare?

[wesdon1]

16 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Thats really odd. You would expect that both nebulae would show up in more or less similar intensity. Have you tried doing both Heart & Soul on the same night to compare?

@AstroMuni Hi. Yes it's bizarre how both nebs are same mag but the signal seems so much weaker from the soul neb? 

No actually I haven't but that seems like a great idea, thanks. As I mentioned, the heart neb is a joy to image, the subs are gorgeous, all at the same settings and ISO etc, so it's a mystery! I'll do the both at same time next clear night, and see how I get on.

[Clarkey]

You must also remember that the magnitude of a nebula is spread over its area (and is also a bit subjective). The surface brightness of an object is a better guide to its ease of detection. For example M101 is often difficult to observe due to its low surface brightness, despite having a magnitude of 7.5. I think the surface brightness of the heart is higher than the soul.

 

Edit - Good theory, but the soul is actually brighter?!

Edited September 3 by Clarkey

[WolfieGlos]

This was my Heart and Soul 6 panel mosaic with 9 hours per panel, ISO-400 using a modded Canon 800D with the l'enhance filter, in bortle 4, with 6 minute subs.

Although I think I could process it better now, looking at the colours in particular on this screen, so one to add to my list of re-processing

But I digress, The Soul was the first part of the mosaic, captured in 5 hours on the first night, and it was already pretty good at that point. So only a few hours in bortle 7 (albeit with a better filter for contrast), you probably just need more exposure. Or perhaps, as others have suggested, the sky conditions were not as good as when you captured the Heart?

[Elp]

Both come out as a similar intensity, I've imaged them at the same time within the same FOV.

[Vroobel]

Well, I would suggest at least 15h if you are imaging under Bortle 7. Usually it means several nights, you cannot expect miracles from 2h... 

Here is my 19h+ under Bortle 9, details included. 

https://www.astrobin.com/45alwp/

 

Edited September 3 by Vroobel

[Budgie1]

It may be handy to post the raw stacked image, so others can have a look at it and see if there's anything obvious and have a go at processing it.