First Veil Nebula

[Uranium235]

Just got in from a reasonable evenings session, we had about 3 hours of clear sky so I thought I would have a bash at the Veil nebula before it crossed the meridian. I decided to go with the 150p purely because of speed, I wasnt sure how long it would be clear for so I had to make the most of it.

The rest of the session was spent doing extras subs of M31, well that was until the cloud booed things at 12.30.

Veil Nebula:

Skywatcher 150p + 1000d

8x10min

Thanks for looking

[Doug]

Now that is nice well done, If you have any more please show,cloudy here:(

Doug

Essex

[RobH]

Very nice job.

Focus and tracking look perfect.....you have some lovely detail in there.

You would have an even better image if you applied flats as there is quite a bit of vignetting, which will be making it tricky to bring out the central area in processing. Flats will get rid of this and are easy to do

Cheers

Rob

[Uranium235]

Thanks guys

Rob, the mad thing is... I did use sky flats and still got a gradient. I thought they should have been good becuase I shot them at dusk last night, so no idea why ive still got a gradient. Maxim spat out 3 of the sub frames last night when I stacked them so ive just completed a stack of the FITS files in DSS, and its looking a little better now. If its clear(ish) this eve I will shoot a few more flats and try again.

Dont know why, but every time I stay out for a session I always get a massive headache the next morning (anybody else get this?)...lol... astro hangover.

Rob

[cardconvict]

wow that is very nice, great detail and sharp

[peter shah]

nice and sharp very nice detail:cool:

[Psychobilly]

Rob - Is there any movement with the camera in the focuser, it looks like the bright region is positioned differently between the the flats and the subs...

Focus and tracking is very good and nicely framed

Peter...

[Uranium235]

Hi Peter, im pretty sure the camera didnt move at all last night - however I do remember doing a very slight refocus between taking the flats and doing the lights, could that be it?

I will do some more after work this eve, either sky or laptop flats will do - just to see if it was that what caused it. I tried gradient removal in Maxim, but all that did was shift the vignetting to another part of the screen.

The guiding has been great recently, so much so that Im seriously tempted not to use the ST80 again. Im getting graphs so good with the finderguider you could eat them on toast

Will be back later on when ive produced something im happier with (fingers crossed).

[Uranium235]

Yay, got it sorted now :)

Used a different set of flats and that did the trick. Its uncovered even more of the veil nebula, and on the full frame version its picked up more of the remnant in the bottom left and right corners - but ive cropped that out because of coma.

Looks much better that my first 2 efforts, i think the lesson is to never stack your subs at 2am.... you'l never get it right!

[tooth_dr]

That final version is cracking, the flats really made all the difference!

[Uranium235]

Thanks Its due to be a clear night tonight so im hoping to take it up to 2 hours.... hmmmm just wish i had the MPCC that im going to be getting (very) soon.

[JonH]

Thanks guys

Rob, the mad thing is... I did use sky flats and still got a gradient. I thought they should have been good becuase I shot them at dusk last night, so no idea why ive still got a gradient. Maxim spat out 3 of the sub frames last night when I stacked them so ive just completed a stack of the FITS files in DSS, and its looking a little better now. If its clear(ish) this eve I will shoot a few more flats and try again.

Dont know why, but every time I stay out for a session I always get a massive headache the next morning (anybody else get this?)...lol... astro hangover.

Rob

That's a beautiful image and yes, I get headaches too!

[Deneb]

The last image gets my vote as well.

Nadeem.