Location: Collingwood Park, Ipswich, Queensland,...
Posts: 76
Eagle Nebula
I've only been at this since March, first light on M16. Got myself setup with a Skywatcher 72ed, no field flattener yet, it's on its way. Heq5 Mount, self modded canon 1100d and an optolong cls ccd filter. ZWO Asi120mm-s for guiding.
Finally some clear sky at home in Ipswich QLD. 40 x 210sec subs, 15 darks, 29 flats and bias frames.
Had real trouble focussing, never seem to get stars bright enough in live view to be able to put the bahtinov mask on. Ended up taking a series of shots moving focus each time, enough to platesolve and go to a bright star to get it right. I think my problem is I don't have the right home point set in APT, will play with that next session.
All stacked in DeepSkyStacker and post processed in Photoshop. Very happy with this one and it really looks like a face to me.
Very nice work given you’ve only been at it for a few months. Well done.
As far as your focus goes. Point your scope at one of the brightest stars and use your Bahtinov mask. You can increase the ISO to create clearer defraction lines and then bring it back down when you slew to your target. Everything up there has the same focus point so you don’t have to do it on your target. Try to use a star in the region you’ll be imaging though so you’re looking through a similar amount of atmosphere. Anteres would be a good choice for you for this object.
