New Year, New targets - Works in Progress...

[Andy01]

Hi Team,

With 'er indoors permission I ran away for a couple of clear nights imaging in the country under dark skies. Although the wind was a killer on the first night - even with the makeshift auto windbreak it was gusty and it was coming in from two different directions! :shrug:

Anyway, two new targets (for me anyway) both need a second night's data to really pop & clean up the remaining noise, weather permitting, I should be able to get that done late this week.:D

(Descriptions below borrowed from APOD)

NGC 2736 - Hershel's Ray
The thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. The interstellar shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its elongated appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 5 light-years long and 800 light-years away, but represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant.

Taken from Suburban Melbourne & Rural Victoria -
HaO3RGB 180:120:40:40:40

NGC 2359 - Thor's Helmet
This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet spans about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind -- from the bright star near the center of the bubble's blue-hued region -- sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. This star, a Wolf-Rayet star, is a massive and extremely hot giant star thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the emission nebula is located about 12,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major). This image, made using broadband (RG&B) and narrowband (O3 & Ha) filters, shows the nebula's filamentary gas and dust structures. The blue color originates from strong emission from oxygen atoms in the nebula.

Taken in rural Victoria -
HaO3O3RGB 100:70:70:20:20:20

Both images taken using the 10" f4 CF Newt/Tak NJP/QSI683wsg8.
C&C welcome as always..:thumbsup:

[Atmos]

I had always thought that Hershel’s Ray was larger than that but I’m happy to be corrected!

Both are showing good depth and detail so far Andy but more data is always wanted ;)

[multiweb]

Very neat and sharp as. :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Nice work, Andy!

[strongmanmike]

Both looking very good Andy :thumbsup:

One thing though, without a Moon you can get pretty good results in NB, especially relatively bright objects like these, from suburbia :shrug:. Dark sites make a big difference for deep Lum gathering and deep RGB (as apposed to when just gathering RGB largely for star colour only). Since you have to travel (and get permission to leave :lol:) I'd be saving trips to dark sites for deep gradient free LRGB shooting :thumbsup:

Mike

[Andy01]

Colin, Marc & Rick, thanks for the encouragement - hoping to finish these off as soon as Melbourne's weather permits :)



Cheers Mike - you're correct of course.:thumbsup:
Unfortunately I have large trees in my neighbour's backyard that block the views NE-NW so Thor's is harder to image from home - and it's been on the bucket list for a long, long time, so... :shrug:

Hopefully the Sombrero & M83 can be targeted next trip away. :D

[strongmanmike]

Yes, good sky access is usually another advantage of most good dark sky sites too :)

Fun times....

Mike

[gregbradley]

Love the Herschels Ray image. I have never seen those tendrils coming off it raining down on the left before.

That's a good image scale for that object. A shot of Herschel's Ray can mean only one thing - Its Vela SNR time!! Yeah.

Thors Helmet colour looks a little off. Its more a teal object.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

I take it the weather down Mexico way has been pretty good :)

Progressing well. :thumbsup:....so, can you get that Indian north of the border to stop the rain dance?

[codemonkey]

Nice work, Andy, looking good so far. Will look excellent once you can get some more data to improve the SNR.

[Stevec35]

Really good looking images already Andy. I'm looking forward to the final versions.

Steve

[Andy01]

Cheers Greg, Lots of imaging goodness to be found in Vela :thumbsup:



Thanks Peter, you wouldn’t want to see my 80’s dance moves then! :cool:



Cheers Lee, yes hopefully just one, maybe two more decent clear nights at f4 - loving the speed of this beast!



Thanks Steve, no pressure now then hey :D

[Placidus]

Both really good Andy. You're getting some impressively faint material there.

[Paul Haese]

Not bad Andy, at least your Newtonian has most of the bugs worked out of it. I bet you cannot wait to grab some more data on them.

[Andy01]

Cheers M&T- considering the relatively short integration time, there’s a fair bit going on already- makes me wonder about those Tak newts that image at f2.8!
Bet you’re keen to get your camera working again :D



Thanks Paul! Diego loaned it to me & I used it once and immediately ‘saw the light’ was very impressed and promptly purchased it from him. Guess he sorted it out prior so now it just works :thumbsup:
Sorry to hear of your issues with OOUK, I’d happily recommend having a chat with Diego & Paul from Sidereal Trading if you want one of their hand built fast newts that work well out of the box :thumbsup:

I’m still gathering data on Hershel’s Ray, but Thor was finally finished last week. There’s a thread for it in this section already.

[willik]

Very nice Andy I like it a lot.
Martin