Captured M17 Swan Nebula on Wednesday night on the south coast under amazing skies. CFN got it totally wrong that night as the forecast was supposed to be high to medium cloud all night but it ended being a cracker of a clear stable cool night til morning
Last time I imaged M17 was August last year
8” f5 Bintel GSO newt on an EQ6-R mount
Canon 600D stock with Baader coma corrector ( no filters )
60mm Orion Guide Scope with helical focuser and ZWOASI120MM-S guide camera
ISO 800
100 x 2 minute dithered guided subs ( 3 hours )
40 x darks
Dithered every sub ( medium dither)
PHD2 guiding total rms error 0.80 to 0.90 arc sec ( seeing very good and nice stable guide star with HFD 3.80 to 4.50 peaks and SNR of 39 to 43 )
Goto and tracking EQMOD, StellariumScope and Stellarium
Meridian flip ( didn’t change the counterweights on the western side and in fact guiding got better ?? )
Frame , focus and Capture BYEOS
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
Processed in Startools V1.5 Linear data set
Original and cropped frame versions attached
Thanks All for your kind comments
I forgot to mention that 50% of the subs were under full moon glare as well however I set up a tarp to stop the direct moon glare hitting the end of the OTA ( this does help a lot )
I’ve just about gone as far as I can go with a DSLR in AP after nearly 4 years, the Canon 600D has been great and still is great for an old camera.Im glad I didn’t have it modded as the results have been really good on all objects as a stock camera. Im still going to use it but I have the next phase to learn upgrading to cooled OSC
My new ZWOASI2600MC is still on back order and no confirmed delivery date
Thanks again !!
Thanks LIS
It’s been an ordinary Winter on the east coast so far but that night was a cracker
I don’t think capturing any more data would have contributed anymore to the result