I have always wanted to hit this beautiful field since first seeing this object in Marco Lorenzi's amazing ROG APOTY shortlisted image, it blew my mind, I didn't know it existed... That was back in 2012-13...so now finally it is my turn
This was taken over 5 nights for a total of over 25hrs exposure time. I was pretty happy with this, as this time of year we only get 6 hours of astronomical darkness to shoot with each night, so when you factor in manual focus checks, dither re-aquires after every exposure, sub frame image download times, manual meridian flip, etc, that's good productive imaging, for a non automated, manual dome turning, manual meridian flip and re aquire (no plate solving etc) kinda guy and I threw out not a single sub exposure after all that!! ...did drink some beer though
Sitting in a rich field of OIII and Halpha emission nebulae, a remarkable and beautiful, striated, teal coloured, almost perfectly spherical, bubble, is being blown in the interstellar medium by the intense stellar wind from a very hot and massive Wolf-Rayet star at its centre. Wolf-Rayet stars have surface temperatures of between 30 000K and 210 000 K, compared to our Sun, which has a surface temperature of just 5800K!
If you must pixel peep (or just wanna check out the amazing pin point field of the FSQ106EDX4 across the 52mm diagonal sensor ) the full size full res jpeg is HERE
Hope you like it and all imaging details are in the blurb under the image
........that's good productive imaging, for a non automated, manual dome turning, manual meridian flip and re aquire (no plate solving etc) kinda guy and I threw out not a single sub exposure after all that!! ...did drink some beer though
Whoa!! I didn't expect this at all. You're finding targets manually?
And yeah, massive high five on this one Mike, really cool to see the field surrounding this in such depth.
As mentioned on FB - Stunning Mike! I too have always wanted to image this in widefield, since seeing some renditions a couple of years ago. Yours however has been taken to an entirely new level of stunning! Absolutely marvellous and definitely one of your very best images to date!
Whoa!! I didn't expect this at all. You're finding targets manually?
And yeah, massive high five on this one Mike, really cool to see the field surrounding this in such depth.
Hi JP, I don't find targets manually as such, I do use goto and then take a succession of short exposures to hone in on the framing using my mounts hand control. The mount does a meridian flip when I command it to but then I repeat the framing process the other side when it arrives near the target, I periodically check focus between runs of filters by watching a focus star in a real time succession of 2sec exposures and press the focuser hand controls, until the focus star is as small as I can make it and I turn the dome by hand every 30min or so to keep the opening in front of the scope. I do use software to take each series of sub frames and it dithers automatically between sub frames etc..I'm just not automated as such so need to babysit my rig...so I am there for the entire 25hrs and all associated time .....
So glad you enjoyed the view
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
You went to town on that one. Love the wide field especially the area at 8 o'clock. One for the cool wall.
Thanks Marc, for a B&W man they are good comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
An excellent rendition Mike! Well worth the effort! Intense colours, but not over the top. Very beautiful!
Thanks Marcus, I'd imagined this image for a looong time now...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Placidus
A stunning image Mike. We've only ever seen it in extreme close-up. The widefield is totally successful.
Much to be said about dolphins and ocean waves and bright golden sand, but silence is also golden.
An average of over 4.5 hours a night, fully manually, is extremely productive.
A lovely image.
Actually I averaged 5hrs a night...?..didn't I?.. 25hrs/5 , I got some thin high cloud a couple'a times but it wasn't bad enough to throw any subs and one night did cloud over early. As for being fully manual, refer to comments above to JP.. not quite, I just have to be organised and think a bit
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
As mentioned on FB - Stunning Mike! I too have always wanted to image this in widefield, since seeing some renditions a couple of years ago. Yours however has been taken to an entirely new level of stunning! Absolutely marvellous and definitely one of your very best images to date!
Thanks so much Andy, most glad you enjoyed it
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
Superb rendering of this object Mike. It really is a nice image. Everything is just right in my opinion.
The goldilocks image then, shall we say..?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoolhandJo
Very nice! excellent colours and clarity
Thanks a lot Paul
Quote:
Originally Posted by rustigsmed
massive effort and stunning result Mike. so much going on in the background.
A fantastic image Mike. This must be one of your longest exposures. The Dolphin is a faint object and the hours paid off. Good to see all that background O111 as I wasn't sure when I imaged it if I had a gradient or if it was real.
A fantastic image Mike. This must be one of your longest exposures. The Dolphin is a faint object and the hours paid off. Good to see all that background O111 as I wasn't sure when I imaged it if I had a gradient or if it was real.
The widefield view really suits it.
Greg.
Thanks Greg and yep, it's my 4th longest exposure, I have only done 29hrs, 32.5hrs and 52.5hrs that are greater