LH120-Dorado SuperBubble

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Clear sky Sunday night, Inspired by Greg Bradley's shot I set out to have a go at taking in the photons on this faint beauty. Lots of difficulty in finding it since it was sitting right over Melbourne's light glow and unsure if my Goto was in the ballpark or not (No room for error with 1250mm FL ).
... Anyhow punched in the custom RA & Dec into the synscan(doesn't store this in its object list unfortunately) and it slewed to it - not without my doubts as it took till nearly midnight before I was convinced I had it in the frame. The sky darkened enough for some resemblance to appear in a high 2000 ISO sub....just.

My best Polar alignment to date which I was impressed, unguided 60subs@43sec for 44min total light capture,10darks,15flats and a late night for a standard working week.

I'm very happy to have snagged it considering I wasn't expecting to resolve it, but with the V3 filter it did the job(difficult to manage colour balance tho -prefer UV/IR for cleaner stars). This would be a treat to image given true dark skies...
Cheers,

Anth

[RickS (Rick)]

Nice catch, Anth.

[Imme (Jon)]

Kicking on there Anth, great capture from home!
Really liking those star colors as well. Well done mate, love it.
I have been looking for a target this new moon and I'm thinking maybe this is it.
Keep it up mate.

How are the guiding plans coming along?

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Another great result from light polluted skies Anthony. This would be a challenge from a dark sky site, so makes this even more impressive. It makes me think how many other gems that are close to the more popular targets are overlooked as suitable photographic subjects. Keep finding these gems, Anthony!

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Very nice Anthony. Looks like we are going to get a rush on this lovely target.

Be nice to see a higher res version to fully appreciate it

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Nice catch, Anth.

Cheers Rick,
‘‘Twas a real test of patience but worth the grind.

Originally Posted by Imme

Kicking on there Anth, great capture from home!
Really liking those star colors as well. Well done mate, love it.
I have been looking for a target this new moon and I'm thinking maybe this is it.
Keep it up mate.

How are the guiding plans coming along?

Thanks Imme,
I’m sure you will get a fantastic pic with your setup.
I have gone to the effort of at least following your advice and downloaded all programs and drivers. Spoke with Don from Bintel( he’s a good bloke) and got some ideas and quotes on guidescope and guidecam. Not to sure if I’ll bother with connecting the DSLR. Seems to fiddly and framing still involves a manual effort to rotate anyway defeating the purpose of full automation essentially. I’ll consider starting with auto guiding to begin with. At least I’ve made a start. I even got a red bulb for the shed. Wow, I must be getting closer hey? Hehehe




.

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Another great result from light polluted skies Anthony. This would be a challenge from a dark sky site, so makes this even more impressive. It makes me think how many other gems that are close to the more popular targets are overlooked as suitable photographic subjects. Keep finding these gems, Anthony!

Yes Mickoid, targeting southern objects pose a real problem where I image from. Ilive on a hill and the city glow is even more prominent. I am restricted to using the light pollution filter mostly. It does allow me to produce a result though albeit trying to process the data to bring it in line with true colour and removing star glow atrifacts- not easy. I’m not that savvy with the processing part. It’s another area to improve on. But I like that. Keeps me interested.

Originally Posted by ChrisV

Very nice Anthony. Looks like we are going to get a rush on this lovely target.

Be nice to see a higher res version to fully appreciate it

Thankyou Chris,
yep I agree. It’s a richly framed image with variable coloured stars mini clusters surrounding the bubble. As I mentioned this was unknown to me before I saw it in the deep sky section of the forum. And as Mickoid said, there are heaps of others around to explore. I should consult my Star Atlas maps. They have them spotted all over the place!
PS - I tried to find a way to upload a full res shot on Astrobin. Can’t get the link to attach to my post. Not to good with this sort of computer tech.
Good luck with it should you get a chance to image it.
Anth

[Imme (Jon)]

Originally Posted by Anth10

.

Thanks Imme,
I’m sure you will get a fantastic pic with your setup.
I have gone to the effort of at least following your advice and downloaded all programs and drivers. Spoke with Don from Bintel( he’s a good bloke) and got some ideas and quotes on guidescope and guidecam. Not to sure if I’ll bother with connecting the DSLR. Seems to fiddly and framing still involves a manual effort to rotate anyway defeating the purpose of full automation essentially. I’ll consider starting with auto guiding to begin with. At least I’ve made a start. I even got a red bulb for the shed. Wow, I must be getting closer hey? Hehehe
Anth

If I can help setting up that guiding anth let me know.
Personally, if you’re going to the effort of guiding I’d also take the step of attaching the dslr too. Focus, sub saturation, flats and most importantly plate solving is there if you do.
Remember how easy it was for me to find a target....platesolving is definately a great tools!