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I've been wanting to get a clean shot of this nebula / star-forming region for a while. I shot my standard sequence on it last week, but it was just too hard to process. I thought about adding some data from a few years ago, but then I came to my senses and took my own advice: I shot more data. The long-exposure Ha made the difference.
Orion 200mm f/4 Newtonian
Atik 383L+
8x 600s Ha, 1x1
12x 900s Ha, 1x1
8ea 120s RGB, 2x2
Total exposure: 5.9 hours
DSO AP:Orion 200mm f/4 Newtonian Astrograph; ATIK 383L+; EFW2 filter wheel; Astrodon Ha,Oiii,LRGB filters; KWIQ/QHY5 guide scope; Planetary AP:Celestron C-11; ZWO ASI120MC; Portable: Celestron C-8 on HEQ5 pro; C-90 on wedge; 20x80 binos; Etc: Canon 350D; Various EPs, etc. Obs: 8' Exploradome; iOptron CEM60 (pier); Helena Observatory (H2O)Astrobin
That is a wonderful image. I captured the same target in late August and I could not get anything to really standout. Now, I see you added a three hours at 900 seconds.I was not integrating nearly that long.
I have 36 frames at 300 seconds for Ha 12 at 300 for OIII and and 12 at 300 for SII. Ha had pretty good signal. I was capturing this when the moon was too bright to do RGB, and I never went back to collect that.
That's a nice image, Mike. This is quite a faint target, though. You have 3 hours of Ha, but in what I would consider short exposures.
I usually shoot 8x 10min (aft f/4) in Ha. That gives me frames that are quite underexposed compared to the broadband filters, but usually enough to work with. But this target, being dimmer than what I usually shoot, had very little dynamic range.
I can tell when I am losing dynamic range when I stretch the histogram to put the peak at 25% and the peak breaks down into individual peaks for the discrete ADU levels. With my usual exposure, I was getting that on this target. I realized that I needed not only more total time, but more time per frame. My guiding has been pretty decent since I got the mount balance dialled in, so I figured I'd go for 12x 15min.
The difference was amazing. I didn't have to do much fiddling to have the contrast jump out at me and say, "I'm done". I have learned to listen to the data when it speaks to me like that.
DSO AP:Orion 200mm f/4 Newtonian Astrograph; ATIK 383L+; EFW2 filter wheel; Astrodon Ha,Oiii,LRGB filters; KWIQ/QHY5 guide scope; Planetary AP:Celestron C-11; ZWO ASI120MC; Portable: Celestron C-8 on HEQ5 pro; C-90 on wedge; 20x80 binos; Etc: Canon 350D; Various EPs, etc. Obs: 8' Exploradome; iOptron CEM60 (pier); Helena Observatory (H2O)Astrobin
I've often thought about trying that target but always feel that my DSLR is unlikely to do it justice.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer
============================================================================= I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do. =============================================================================
AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
Hey Kathy, that’s simply MARVELOUS!! Excellent details and colors while, as Babi says, subtle....best capture I’ve ever seen of this object!!
Fantastic Image!!
Tom