Eta Carina Neb

[cometcatcher]

This is my first nebula pic taken with my first full spectrum DSLR, an old Nikon D70s. Apart from some amp glow in the upper left corner, the old Nikon doesn't seem to mind the summer temperatures as much as my newer Pentax K-x. Normally I can't image nebula in summer with DSLR cameras here in the tropics due to heat generated noise. It's not as deep as a winter pic would be, but it's something and that's better than the nothing I could get in summer before now.

Image details, I dunno, I didn't write em all down. :P Lemme see, taken over the last few nights between clouds, air temp 27 degrees, Camera - full spectrum modified Nikon D70s, subs at ISO 400, Filters - Baader semi-apo, Astronomik CLS and no name brand 30nm Ha, telescope - Sky Watcher 120mm F5 achro. Stacked in DSS, combined and processed in PS.

Every single minute was painstakingly hand guided with a HEQ5 pro, which was not an easy task as I needed one hand on the hand controller, one hand swatting mosquitoes, another hand eating soup and another hand making sure Rigel the kitten didn't make unnecessary corrections while he was biting my fingers. Wait that's 4 hands... :question:

So there you have it, an image made with blood, sweat and spilled soup. :P

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi Kevin,

Certainly plenty of red coming through with the HA, surprising there's not much noise.
Hand guiding, that's a tough gig!
Love your description of the four armed imager, make a good cartoon.:thumbsup:

Cheers,

Justin.

[cometcatcher]

Hi Justin,

The Nikon D70s is eating the Pentax K-x at these temperatures, which I am surprised about also considering it's an old CCD, not CMOS.

[nebulosity.]

Great work Kevin :thumbsup: I'm impressed be your guiding skills, the stars look perfect :thumbsup: great data to by the looks, do you know the exposure times? and roughly how many subs? it's nice and smooth.

Although do you reckon it's a bit lacking in colour? (besides the red) :question:
In bringing out the faint red parts I think you may have lost some detail in the high lights and squished the other colours. I hope you don't mind but I had a bit of a fiddle and I think it might be worth while to do a repro and see if you could bring some of the colour back. Other wise, impressive image :thumbsup:

See the original, and the fiddled.

Cheers
Jo

[cometcatcher]

Hi Jo, probably no more than 2 hours all up. Sub length was from 3 to 6 minutes at ISO 400. Subs are scattered across different folders so I've lost track of things a bit. I'm a computer slob if the imaging run lasts for more than one night. :)

Your repo looks good, but shows the CA which I was trying to hide. ;) I'll re-shoot it with the ED80 sometime, clouds permitting, which will hopefully show better colour.

[nebulosity.]

WOW! Six minute manually guided subs, that sounds like fun :lol:

Sorry for showing up the CA ;) :D It just shows you can never win :( last night I thought was going to be good, dead calm, clear sky and then just as I'm hooking up the camera, BAM! It starts blowing a gale :help:

[cometcatcher]

Sorry to hear your night was crook. It was beautifully clear here, but hot as. I got 2 hours of data straight without a cloud. The colour is still rather bland, must be the CLS filter. My house is surrounded by those yellow / orange sodium lights so it's not so dark here, except to the NE.

So here's a re-shoot from last night. 25 x 5 minute subs all manually guided. This time I used the ED80 so there's little in the way of CA. The heat though, I was sweating the whole time and I really think it's impacting on the camera's ability to record faint detail. Deep sky at 30 degrees is for the birds.

[multiweb]

Very nice field. Well done. :thumbsup:

[Ross G]

Nice capture Kevin.

Great guiding!

Ross.

[nebulosity.]

Really like this second try Kevin :thumbsup:

Lovely deep red colour.

Jo

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Marc, Ross and Jo.

[Andy01]

Very nice capture, well balanced colours and a great story about your dedication to AP to boot, well done :)

[Peter Ward]

Nice.

Time to move on to a CCD ;)

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Andrew and Peter.

If money wasn't so tight I'd have a mono CCD, but have to do the best with what I've got for the time being.