Hi Everyone,
I saw Steve's @steve333 post of the Monkey's Head Nebula (
NGC 2174) a few days ago and his beautiful image. I had never heard of the Monkey's Head Nebula and when I looked it up in SkySafari, there was no image when I zoomed in, but only a box. The information said that the apparent magnitude was 6.8.
When I looked at its position in the sky, I saw that it was really good for my location. High enough to be rising out of the
lp soup just after dark and should move in between some big trees in the back yard until about 270 degrees. Hmmm. It was between M1 the Crab Nebula and a try at the Monkey's Head. Since M1 is so small in my field of view, I decided on
NGC 2174.
I set up and solved on
NGC 2174. Shot a quick photo to check to see if I could spot the nebula and was pleasantly surprised to see a nice patch of nebulosity. The Monkey Head, however was facing up, so I rotated the camera 90 degrees, refocused, and went back to
NGC 2174 and started imaging.
I could see nice nebulosity in the subs.
I recently made some guiding setting (PHD2 and the mount) changes and had posted about the results.
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=6435&p=55367&hilit=avx#p55125.
That night while imaging M78, I had experienced the best guiding I have had with this mount. I mostly saw total rms error all night averaging about 0.9 - 1.1 arcsec which is very good for me.
Well, when I started imaging
NGC 2174, I was not seeing these good numbers. My guiding was about what it was before I made the changes. Maybe averaging 1.3 - 1.6. Seeing was below average, but it was during the M78 imaging also.
As the night progressed and the target approached the
meridian, the total rms error dropped quite a bit. I kept a pretty good eye on it and mostly saw a total rms error of 0.8 - 1.0 up to and through the flip and for the rest of the evening. Of course, except for an occaisional
RA blip and dithering.
Well, I really had a good time. All of my "toys" played very well together. Great target (thank you Steve!) and a good night.
Stacked 54 light frames (300 seconds iso 800) at 90% in
DSS (4 hrs integration).
Darks, Bias, and Flats
Also to note. Previously with mid-histogram flats, I still had some light vignetting and sometimes a dust mote or two that was easily mitigated in Photoshop. Since going to about 40% of full well ADU flats (measured with APLab), there are no vignetting or dust mote issues. Thanks all for those posts!
This is a single frame 5 minute exposure of
NGC 2174 processed with only a levels adjustment in Photoshop Elements.
This is a snip of
APT with a light frame capture.
This is my processed image below still has issues with the stars. I like the coloration, but still have some saturation (rings) that I have tried unsuccessfully to reduce in
Startools. I did reduce the stretch to see if it would help with the stars, but without success. If anyone has any suggestions, please comment!
This version below was my first pass in processing. It literally took 5 minutes in
Startools. Everything popped into place very quickly in including Color. Noise was very low. The only issue that I am still having are the saturated stars. I was hoping that the new filter (IDAS LPS-D1) would help with that, and it may have some, but the issue still remains. Got a very busy day today and probably won’t get a chance to troubleshoot the stars, so I just want to put this up as is, a WIP.
The new IDAS filter really did seem to help greatly with
lp remediation. I was shooting at 300 seconds and getting good subs even when the target was just above the Na vapor neighborhood lighting. Very happy with the filter. Thanks again Steve!
Thanks for looking and please comment if you have any suggestions concerning the image.
Thanks!
Jim
Scopes: Explore Scientific ED102 APO, Sharpstar 61 EDPH II APO, Samyang 135 F2 (still on the Nikon).
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro with Rowan Belt Mod
Stuff: ASI EAF Focus Motor (x2), ZWO OAG, ZWO 30 mm Guide Scope, ASI 220mm min, ASI 120mm mini, Stellarview 0.8 FR/FF, Sharpstar 0.8 FR/FF, Mele Overloock 3C.
Camera/Filters/Software: ASI 533 mc pro, ASI 120mm mini, ASI 220mm mini , IDAS LPS D-1, Optolong L-Enhance, ZWO UV/IR Cut,
N.I.N.A., Green Swamp Server, PHD2, Adobe Photoshop CC, Pixinsight.
Dog and best bud: Jack
Sky: Bortle 6-7
My Astrobin:
https://www.astrobin.com/users/Juno16/