Overlooked but beautiful planetary in Hydra

[Bill.davey (Bill)]

Beautiful image. I love PN's.
Astrodon has an image of this which was an APOD on 6 May 2010 for comparison.
Bill

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Retrograde

Nice work taking an object that many of us were unaware of and making it look so amazing.

Cheers mate

Originally Posted by Bill.davey

Beautiful image. I love PN's.
Astrodon has an image of this which was an APOD on 6 May 2010 for comparison.
Bill

Cheers for that Bill, clearly my search didn't include the right words even a search using "Southern Owl Nebula" only shows up Dons image...but a nice surprise to realise that mine has come out so well, thanks especially considering I used a super fast F3.8 12" Newt at just 1120mm FL, compared to Don's 14.5" RCOS at 3000mm FL ...bah! who needs long focal length and bodes well regarding the quality of the new line of 6nm Astronomik filters too I guess?

Mike

[Phil Hart]

You have certainly done it justice. A nice little (but hardly easy) image.

Nothing beats a long cold dark winter night. There are only so many people who can appreciate the sincerity of that comment and most of them are here on IIS!

Phil

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

That's something a bit different and interesting! Beautiful Mike!

Cheers, Marcus

[Maurice]

Nice job with some great framing on this one.. love it.

cheers
Maurice

[Shiraz (Ray)]

outstanding image Mike - unusual object, so thanks for letting us have a look.

[jase (Jason)]

Excellent Mike, not only because its a cool looking object but also that fact that I'm not seeing another NGC5128, M16, NGC6188, or blah blah mainstream from you. Out of interest, how long were your subs on this target as I'm wondering if there is any faint shell or halo present on this PN. Enjoyed the view. Thanks.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by philiphart

You have certainly done it justice. A nice little (but hardly easy) image.

Nothing beats a long cold dark winter night. There are only so many people who can appreciate the sincerity of that comment and most of them are here on IIS!

Phil

Thanks Phil, yep cold and dark, the way it should be

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

That's something a bit different and interesting! Beautiful Mike!

Cheers, Marcus

Thanks Marcus, another quickie from me, I'm loving it, hope to image the whole sky in no time

Originally Posted by Maurice

Nice job with some great framing on this one.. love it.

cheers
Maurice

Hi Maurice, nice to see you in the dark forum and thanks so much

Originally Posted by Shiraz

outstanding image Mike - unusual object, so thanks for letting us have a look.

On ya Ray and you are very welcome

Originally Posted by jase

Excellent Mike, not only because its a cool looking object but also that fact that I'm not seeing another NGC5128, M16, NGC6188, or blah blah mainstream from you. Out of interest, how long were your subs on this target as I'm wondering if there is any faint shell or halo present on this PN. Enjoyed the view. Thanks.

Oh don't worry, some of those boring beauties are sure to raise there lovely heads again...and again...I have a whole new set of narrowband filters

I'm a simple un-automated amateur so I only used 10min subs for the Ha and OIII and 5min for RGB ...all that is necessary with my scope, camera and conditions, just ask Ray . I did wonder about an outer halo after the fact, this was just a test image for the new filters while I waited for one of those boring girls you mentioned, to rise

Mike

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Beautiful Mike. Love it.

Mmm, 3 arc minutes. Too small for me.

[Fabiomax (Fabiomassimo)]

Just 3 arcmin size?wow, really great details for this planetary nebula! For me i see this nebula for the first time, great job!
Cheers,
Fabiomax

[topheart]

Mike,
I like this planetary....might give it a go!

Thanks,
Tim

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Beautiful Mike. Love it.

Mmm, 3 arc minutes. Too small for me.

Originally Posted by Fabiomax

Just 3 arcmin size?wow, really great details for this planetary nebula! For me i see this nebula for the first time, great job!
Cheers,
Fabiomax

Cheers Kevin and Fabiomax, Oh come'on Kev, give it a shot

Originally Posted by topheart

Mike,
I like this planetary....might give it a go!

Thanks,
Tim

Great Tim, you have a similar scope to me even so would be interesting to see what you can get, I didn't go very long at all as it was just a first light test image so I may have missed some faint outer halo if one is present. I used no Lum and only a small amount of RGB to colour the stars so a good wack of those could get you some more distant galaxies in the frame too and they are there, might look really nice

Mike

[astronobob (Bob)]

Amazing Image Mike, check them subtle details within - you'd be proud of that one huh, Ive never seen anything much quite like that before !
Good onya for finding such a good target and showing how them mighty filters work, extraordinary stuff chief

Hippy Bob

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by astronobob

Amazing Image Mike, check them subtle details within - you'd be proud of that one huh, Ive never seen anything much quite like that before !
Good onya for finding such a good target and showing how them mighty filters work, extraordinary stuff chief

Hippy Bob

Thanks Bob, t'was just a short test image for the new filters and while there was plenty of Ha and OIII, there was no SII in this little bugger, so I am in the middle of collecting a full SIIHaOIII on a larger target

Catchya

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Well fancy that...ESO just recently released a beaut image (with a nice detailed write up) of this very rarely imaged planetary nebula in Hydra. There was only one other reasonable image to compare with at the time so it was nice to finally get a high quality comparison to see how my result faired. Seems my colour (and apart from the expected point source limiting magnitude difference) along with the details match quite closely - cool

Mike

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Impressive in your face close up Mike!

The amount of subtle detail is surprising, love it.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Well fancy that...ESO just recently released a beaut image (with a nice detailed write up) of this very rarely imaged planetary nebula in Hydra. There was only one other reasonable image to compare with at the time so it was nice to finally get a high quality comparison to see how my result faired. Seems my colour (and apart from the expected point source limiting magnitude difference) along with the details match quite closely - cool

Mike

You've done a very nice job comparing the two, considering the equipment price difference

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

You've done a very nice job comparing the two, considering the equipment price difference

Yours is certainly a top image Mike and just shows how good amateur equipment is these days. I must admit that some of the ESO images just don't measure up in my view although this is one of the better ones. Frankly I think that amateurs are better at doing pretty pictures.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Lovely image of a rare target, well done

Would you mind please telling me (and all of us) how/where do you go to research and seek out these rare and exotic targets?

Cheers

Andy

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by Stevec35

Yours is certainly a top image Mike and just shows how good amateur equipment is these days. I must admit that some of the ESO images just don't measure up in my view although this is one of the better ones. Frankly I think that amateurs are better at doing pretty pictures.

I have a feeling that a lot of this comes down to the fact that they don't dedicate anywhere near the same amount of exposure time onto each individual target. I mean, Mike put like 13 hours into that image, ESO cannot afford to dedicate that amount of observation time onto a single target such as this.