[AZ-Observing] Re: New Camera First Light - NGC 6888 Narrowband
- From: "Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)" <mrgalaxy@xxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 09:44:59 GMT
15480 Empire Rd.
Benson, AZ 85602
hm ph: 520-586-2244 Beautiful image, Mike. It almost appears to be
3-dimensional. It also looks like you found a black hole in the middle of the
nebula! Look forward to seeing more of your narrow-band images.
Clear skies,
Wayne (aka Mr. Galaxy)
---------- Original Message ----------
From: Mike Wiles <mikewilesaz@xxxxxxxxx>
To: AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, sbig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] New Camera First Light - NGC 6888 Narrowband
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 19:55:43 -0700
Hello all,
After waiting patiently for the bad weather that was delivered with my
camera to subside - including being physically rained on 17 days in a row
between working in Pittsburgh and the Arizona monsoon, I was finally able
to knock out a first light image. I was excited about the prospect of
narrowband imaging because the bandpass on the filters is so narrow (3
nanometers in my case) that the skyglow from light pollution and the moon
become negligible. About half of the frames in this image were taken
pointed back toward the Phoenix nebula with no visible affect on the
background that I could see.
The new camera setup is heavy at 4.5 pounds so I opted to go with a fully
threaded connection from telescope to camera in the hopes that I could get
away without using a field flattener. A look at the corners of the image
tell me that I'm not going to get that lucky. Imaging in temperatures that
varied from 102� down to 87� didn't help with cooling the camera
either,
but I'm happy with the output. This is a bi-color image. I shot through
two filters - Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III. Once I calibrated and stacked
the images I combined the HAlpha and OIII files at a 25/75% split to create
a synthetic green channel. Mapping HAlpha to Red and OIII to blue, I
combined and processed as a normal RGB. I've also been experimenting with
some scripting of my own as well as testing on CCDWare's excellent CCD
AutoPilot 5 software....the last 6 hours of the data collection was
entirely automated. I may get to actually start looking through a
telescope again while I image!!
The full sized, uncropped field can be seen at Astrobin - NGC 6888
Bi-color<http://www.astrobin.com/full/16771/?mod=none>
If you have difficulty with the link, try here: NGC 6888 - smaller Direct
Link<http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/539115_4285947474180_698723027_n.jpg>
*Object: *NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula)
*Dates:* Aug 2nd to 5th, 2012
*Location:* Goodyear, AZ - 35mi (56 km) Southwest of Phoenix, Arizona
*Telescope:* Explore Scientific ES127CF Refractor - 127mm f/7.5 Triplet
*Mount:* Astro-Physics AP900GTO CP3
*Camera:* SBIG ST-8300m
*Guiding:* SBIG OAG-8300 & SBIG ST-i
*Exposure:* 16.5 hours total
- H-Alpha - 17 frames x 1800 seconds
- Oxygen III - 16 frames x 1800s
*Capture:* Maxim DL 5.18 & CCD AutoPilot
*All Calibration & Processing:* PixInsight 1.7
Hope you enjoy. Comments, tips and criticisms are welcomed.
Mike
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
Other related posts:
