Slightly off the beaten track, this is NGC5189, The Spiral Nebula. An interesting and irregular shaped planetary nebula 3000 light years away in the southern constellation of the fly (Musca).
Soooo, if I get a small chip astro cam like the cooled ASI178MC, will I be able to get more gooderer pics of tiny objects like this? Because I want em. They fascinate me. This thing is bizarre.
Soooo, if I get a small chip astro cam like the cooled ASI178MC, will I be able to get more gooderer pics of tiny objects like this? Because I want em. They fascinate me. This thing is bizarre.
Hope this helps..?
We have similar scopes, you are at 1000mm FL while I am at 1120mm, yours is 10" and mine is 12" so not much difference.
Here is the same PN taken with NB filters through my scope (5 years ago) using a Starlightxpress H694 CCD with 4.54 micron pixels, providing an image scale of 0.83"/pix
Hardly any exposure as it was only a very quick first light test image for the new camera and off axis guider setup. It will be up to you if you think the difference is there ...personally I don't think there is that much
I am amazed that you can do so well with a DSLR....!!
Here is my version with an astro CCD setup for your comparison too. I think you are very similar, but my scope is quite different with a much longer focal length.....
It's a great looking NGC 5189 with your current setup Kevin. What you see of course depends so much on the specific object. In general you're always going to do better with a CCD camera on these tiny objects though. I image a lot of them. Here's a random sample:
We have similar scopes, you are at 1000mm FL while I am at 1120mm, yours is 10" and mine is 12" so not much difference.
Here is the same PN taken with NB filters through my scope (5 years ago) using a Starlightxpress H694 CCD with 4.54 micron pixels, providing an image scale of 0.83"/pix
Hardly any exposure as it was only a very quick first light test image for the new camera and off axis guider setup. It will be up to you if you think the difference is there ...personally I don't think there is that much
Mike
Thanks for that Mike. Good comparison. I thought there would be more difference. Gives me something to think about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by E_ri_k
Very cool Kevin. I recal catching this one my self a while ago. A very interesting object, I was surprised. Good job
Erik
Thanks Erik!
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Hi Kevin,
A very nice spiral nebula. very well done!!
I am amazed that you can do so well with a DSLR....!!
Here is my version with an astro CCD setup for your comparison too. I think you are very similar, but my scope is quite different with a much longer focal length.....
Thanks for the comparison Tim. The longer focal length shows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35
It's a great looking NGC 5189 with your current setup Kevin. What you see of course depends so much on the specific object. In general you're always going to do better with a CCD camera on these tiny objects though. I image a lot of them. Here's a random sample:
Slightly off the beaten track, this is NGC5189, The Spiral Nebula. An interesting and irregular shaped planetary nebula 3000 light years away in the southern constellation of the fly (Musca).
Soooo, if I get a small chip astro cam like the cooled ASI178MC, will I be able to get more gooderer pics of tiny objects like this? Because I want em. They fascinate me. This thing is bizarre.
Hi Kevin,
I used a DSLR for many years, and managed to get some great shots. Then one Christmas when it was hot, I noticed my Darks looked like Reds. I then added a cold finger to my DSLR, my Reds where back to being Darks.
What eventually convinced me to go to a CCD/CMOS, was trying to capture the Rosette and Helix Nebula, my camera didn't go far enough into the red (hydrogen alpha), so I couldn't get all the detail.
The big thing I noticed when I went from a DSLR to CCD camera, was the noise floor was so much lower, which meant that I didn't need work anywhere near as hard at processing the image. Noise floor becomes very important when you are dealing with heavy light pollution as I have too.
Now I see those little faint background galaxies appear in my shots which weren't there on my DSLR shots, I would never go back to a DSLR.
There is a little bit of a learning curve when you swap over, but it is well worth it in the end.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Thanks Peter. Yes thermal noise is a big problem here in the tropical summer, which lasts for a good 6 months. The DSLR is okay below 20C, but above that things start to get lost in the noise. But then summer is always cloudy here anyway. I might get half a dozen clear nights in 6 months.
Nothing much I can do about it in the short term. At least winter will give the DSLR a good run.
...personally I don't think there is that much 
