Ngc 3199

[Atmos]

Haven't posted much for a while, had some issues with my refractor last year and last night I took it out for its first test run since repairs. Apart from the fact that I didn't focus it for 5 hours (so about four hours of out of focus subs), I'm really happy with the result.

Recently bought a second hand Nikon D810 so I thought I'd give it its first light. For some reason Windows 10 on my MacBook Pro doesn't talk to my D7200 or D810 (need to do some more fiddling) so I dusted off my old ASUS laptop and used it for mount/camera control.

Forgot how short the USB cable for the D810 was so I could point the telescope south with the laptop sitting right under the camera... And that's about it. Wanted to photograph something so I just picked any nebula that would transit meridian at 4am (when I was going to start packing up) and that just happened to be NGC 3199. Not one I've really heard of nor seen before, not too far away from NGC 3372.

NGC 3199 (https://www.astrobin.com/330202/)

58x300s at ISO800 but not dithered, for whatever reason the laptop kept crashing when a dither command was sent from MaximDL so I just turned dithering off.
Sleep was more important so I focused at 10:50 and that was it! I know I SHOULD refocus every hour with this scope but I was snoozin.
Was reasonably windy for the first few hours but I have no idea if that affected anything, early subs didn't seem wind affected, later ones were just out of focus :P

No noise reduction, no deconvolution, just stretched and played with some curves before saturating the hell out of it :P

[Stevec35]

Nice wide view of this one Colin. Quite like this nebula myself although it isn't a popular one. Here's a large version that I took a while back.

http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/ngc3199_STX16200_RC14.htm

[RickS]

A nice wide field pic, Colin. Makes it obvious why it's sometimes called the Smile Nebula, though I guess yours is more of a frown :)

[rustigsmed]

Nice widefield col I like it - good to see an image from you!

[willik]

That is a full frame image lot of stars looks good
Martin

[Atmos]

The detail in your shot is great! That’s what I get for imaging with a wide field scope :lol:
It really isn’t one that pops up much, I hadn’t come across it before. I started on it not knowing what I was going to get.



I shot it on the wrong side of the meridian and that’s why it’s a sad Nebula and not happy :(



Thanks Russ, I’ve been hiding from the mosquitoes!



It is a very crowded part of the Sky! Stars would have looked nicer if everything was in focus.

[multiweb]

Nice catch Colin. That's a faint one, especially in RGB. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Maaaw...looks like tiny little a rainbow :) :love:

Nice one Col :thumbsup:..ya always fiddling huh? :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ross G]

Great capture Colin.

Ross.

[Atmos]

If I’d known that I’d have picked something brighter :lol:



I’ve stacked a 20x300s version which just uses the subs that are in focus. It’s noises but shows more detail and better colour. Still needs a process though.

Was fiddling last night, getting better on axis stars in the RH200 now :)



Thanks Ross :)

[Atmos]

I've gone and reworked it using ONLY the first 20 subs. The stars look a lot better now that I've culled nearly 30 of the increasingly out of focus stars :P

Reworked 3199 (https://www.astrobin.com/330202/)

Much happier with the result of this one.

[RickS]

Nice, Colin.