Andromeda, Pelican and a surprising Orion

[Icearcher]

Hi All

A crystal clear night presented itself on Saturday and it was just too good to pass up so off to Dutton I head. Used up pretty much the whole night and got home just as dawn was breaking.

I managed a good hour on the pelican/north american nebular waiting for Andromeda to rise, didn't think I would get much but pretty happy with the result. Was very difficult to process.

Andromeda was high enough to image for about four hours and I grabbed a bit over three hours of useful data.

My real little surprise was Orion, this image is a single 5 min sub right at the end of the night as I was about to start my darks. My tracking was going to hell as I had been pushing the mount around and ruined my PA, all told though, happy with what I got.

Hope you all enjoy.

Regards
Chris

[Startrek]

Great effort and really nice images
No too many can image Andromeda due to being so low
What’s your equipment ?

[Icearcher]

Thanks Martin

I didn't get the best subs with Andromeda, I think it was so low that I was picking up a bit of dust haze so my subs were very brown, more than normal.

Im running the following:
Skywatcher evostar 72ed with a .85x FF/FR
Unmodded canon 600D
Skywatcher Star Adventurer guided with an ASI 120MC

All subs were 5mins @ iso 800

[Startrek]

Thanks
I use an unmodded 600D as well with a 60mm axial Cooling Fan mounted about 40mm from the back with the screen opened out just past 90deg
So far it’s dropped the running temperature 5 deg C during long subs
It won’t reduce noise ( dark current ) but may help preserve the life of cameras electronics
ISO 800 seems to be the seems spot for this camera ( I use it for everything, DSO , Planetary and Lunar imaging )
Cheers

[casstony]

Nice to see some more northern objects Chris.

[RyanJones]

Hi Chris,

That Orion is seriously beautiful. The colours and contrast are so natural and for a single 5 min sub it’s amazing. Great job !

[Saturnine]

That's a pretty nice nights work. The blue fringe around Andromeda is a bit bright but getting the North America Neb, considering how low it is for us is a good effort and for one 5min. sub of the Orion Neb to show that detail is amazing to me despite your guiding problems.
Well done.

[LostInSp_ce]

Nice work on a couple of tough targets from down here. It looks like you've got yourself a good dark site, your Orion is already popping at just 5 mins. One can only imagine what another 240 mins stacked would look like.

[ChrisV]

That's a great Andromeda. You give me hope for my October target. Thanks for showing

[Mickoid]

A lovely group of captures there Chris! You must have had a reliable power supply to get so much in through the night and into the morning. I had a go at M31 on Monday night but I only got about 30mins on it as it swept amongst the trees on the horizon. It was also very dewy and hazy. The scope was virtually horizontal to the ground. From what I can see in my subs, there is nowhere near as much detail as you've achieved, I may post it if I think it's worth showing. Your North American nebula is great and that 5 min sub of M42 is amazing for such a short integration time. Nice work! :thumbsup:

[Icearcher]

Thanks everyone for the kind words :)

Martin, I saw your cooling fan post, Im keen to try it myself. Iv noticed subs over 40 degrees are useless and I try to only use the ones under 30.

Thanks Ryan, I think I fluked the processing on it, I surprised myself, it turned out a bit soft but I keep reminding myself it was just one sub.

Thanks Jeff, that blue popped up when I was trying to get rid of the yukky brown from the subs, couldn't quite suppress it, Im not that good at processing yet. The NA nebular was a surprise as I thought it was useless as the stack showed very little of anything.

LostInSp_ce, I have found a nice dark site in the middle of a field, its Bortle Class 2, SQM 21.97 mag.

Chris, Andromeda looks to be even better placed this month, it was almost a little late for me.

Thanks Michael, power has been the bane of my trips up till now. Iv changed to a more efficient laptop that will run for about 8 hours of my powerpack and another 5 of its own battery. Mount is powered by AAs and will last several night and the DSLR is powered of a 20.000mah powerbank that was $29 and running all night used less than half that.

Defiantly post your capture, its all part of learning and of the fun. Plus, my NA nebular looked horrid after DSS and I think it turned out ok. :)

[morls]

Beautiful images.

[Sunfish]

Spectacular. Guiding on the SA. Have to try that.