M14, M53, M68, M92 and M57 the Ring Nebula

[AstroBee]

I went astronomy camping with a couple of buddies this past Thursday and Friday night (April 8-9, 2021) to a Bortle 2 or 3 location that is about 1 hour south of Las Vegas. I was the only person imaging, the rest were visual only, so we were far enough south of the Vegas light bubble to have really nice skies to the east, south, and west.
On Thursday, our first night was a complete bust with unpredicted winds in the neighborhood of 15mph. Here in the desert that puts a lot of dust up into the air so we hunkered down in our tents and didn't even bother breaking out the scopes.
We are finally all three vaccinated so this was the first time we have gotten together for any reason in over a year so the bad weather didn't put a damper on our time together.

Our second night turned out really well and using NINA I managed to capture 4 globulars and M57, the Ring Nebula. Building the sequence in NINA and letting her take care of everything was really nice as I was able to shut the computer screen off, allow my eyes to dark adapt, and enjoy some spectacular sites including watching the Summer Milky Way rise this morning for the first time this year. A clear view to the south even allowed us to do some visual work on Centarus A and Omega Centarus. At 11° and 7° above the horizon respectively. Even so low to the horizon, they were both a spectacular sight!

This brings my Messier count up to 76 now in my official forum gallery.
https://www.alnitakproductions.com/Priv ... r-Project/

All details are identical for each image:
Explore Scientific ED127mm APO w/.7x reducer/flattener
ASI ZWO1600mm camera, Offset 10, Gain 139, -10° below ambient.
Baader Filters, CGX Mount, captured with NINA.

10x 60 seconds, Luminance
10x 120 seconds, RGB ea.
Total Integration time = 70 minutes
Processed with Astro Pixel Processor.

M14, also known as NGC 6402 is a Globular cluster in Ophiuchus.


M53, also known as NGC 5024 is a Globular cluster in Coma Berenices.


M68, also known as NGC 4590 is a Globular cluster in Hydra.


M92, also known as NGC 6341 is a Globular cluster in Hercules.


And finally, M57, The Ring Nebula, also known as NGC 6720 is a Planetary Nebula in Lyra.
I'm not thrilled with this one and will work on it again in the future. One of these days I'll have the focal length needed for these tiny planetary nebulae and galaxies.

[Ylem]

Great captures especially my favourite the Ring

Sounds like you had a great time also

[messier 111]

superb images , thx

[ic_1101]

Beautiful clusters, well done!

[MariusD69]

Great images! Well done!!

[Larry 1969]

Great colors! The ring is such a tiny target but I think yours turned out nicely!

Larry

[TheButcher]

Excellent Astrobee! That must of been a fun time despite the first night.

[AstroBee]

Excellent Astrobee! That must of been a fun time despite the first night.

Indeed we did have fun. It was a good time just sitting around catching up on the last year.

[AstroBee]

Re-edit of M57. I eliminated the Luminance channel and just went with the RGB filters. A bit sharper and I can now make out the central star.

[BABOafrica]

All very nice images. The M57 is the best, I think. Beautiful color.

BABO