An unintended M20

[Benjamin (Ben)]

I had to make a few changes to my setup due to some jamming filters (long story) which meant the back focus from the coma corrector altered so have found myself redialing it all in. It wasn't meant to be particularly clear last night (hence the testing) but ended up with a narrowband M20 (3 hours). The back focus might be close now but collimation and tilt were a bit of a mess. Not the happiest of nights but a start. Never intended to do a NB M20 (much rather a nice LRGB version) but my broadband flats also need redoing so LRGB wasn't really a good option to run with at the last minute. All very noisy but I didn't absolutely hate the colour and the reddish cast of the Ha about M20. I did get a bit of M21 too but that was the side with the most tilt/poor collimation/not quite corrected coma . Best version seemed to be the cropped one anyway.
5nm Ha, 3nm OIII and SII, all 20x180s through the 8" f4 Newt with an ASI1600MM-Pro (200, -10º) on an EQ6-R. Processed in PixInsight.
Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/full/o5jo2t/F/

[gregbradley]

That turned out excellently for an unintended or even if it were an intended image.

Greg.

[Benjamin (Ben)]

Ha. The unintended bit was more the narrowband aspect. Happy with the colour though so might pursue this more to get the noise down and maybe some better stars.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice shot Ben. More data will make it smoother but it's headed to be a great shot.

[Benjamin (Ben)]

Definitely something to pursue. I didn’t deal with the noise quite so well in the background, or rather, the big red patch to the left could probably be pursued a bit more for detail and not become so background (less clumpy), but something to do once I have more data I think :-)

[Bart]

Nice shot and great colours although I'm more of a broadband guy when it comes to the Trifid. Would be interesting to see your end result if you pursue this.

[Benjamin (Ben)]

I’m with you Bart. Broadband for this object is the way to go but now I’ve started this NB thing I feel I’d better go through with it! Guess somewhere down the the track I can get some RGB and use the Ha as a luminance.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Hey Ben, Good start!
For reference - if you jump on my Astrobin page, you'll see where I've shot the trifid using, LRGB, HaRGB & HaO3S2 versions.
Definitely not a project for the feint hearted, but narrowband Trifids can look pretty cool.

[Benjamin (Ben)]

No need to check the Astrobin page, I remember them clearly Andy! I even tried to include M21, but the stars were so bad on that side :-/ Maybe some more data tonight :-)

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Unintended is good. I remember my very first attempt at an astrophoto. I was up at King's Tableland in the Blue Mountains, in a little forest clearing. No software pointing model, just the finderscope. I was TRYING to photograph the Trifid, because at least I'd heard of it. The thing was in the zenith, and I couldn't see anything in the finder. I lay down on the gravel, saying "Come on Mike, you can DO this". I pointed the whole scope at what I could just see with the naked eye as a fuzzy patch. Took the photo. It was the Lagoon. My First Red Smudge.