Sh2-308

[casstony]

Sharpless 2-308 is a bubble blown out by a star thought to be in it's pre-supernova phase.
I took this image through thin smoke and with a rising full moon, about 2.5 hours of 6 min exposures with the L-Enhance filter.
I hope to get quite a nice image under better conditions.

[Paulyman]

Very nice.

[Outcast]

That is very cool Tony...

[Zubenel]

Good One Tony. AKA the Dolphin Head neb in Canis Major, Not far from M41. :thumbsup:

[carlstronomy]

Super image, love the detail you have in there :thumbsup:

[skysurfer]

Amazing pic, particularly when taken at a full moon with smoke haze which exacerbates the light pollution effect !


Which telescope / lens did you use ?

[casstony]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.
This was taken with the TS115 and 0.8 reducer. I've just received a Starizona Apex 0.65 reducer which will bring the f/7 scope to f/4.6 so I might try that next time, given the faintness of the bubble.

It's a fabulous object in nature and appearance - I'd really like to get a clear image.

[LostInSp_ce]

Very impressive Tony, especially during these times. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Given the sort of conditions around in recent times , thats a really nice result Tony :thumbsup: Its a fascinating object, I had hoped to hit it this season too with the FSQ but I'm not holding my breath....well then again,actually, I am doing a fair bit of that lately :question: :rolleyes:

Mike

[casstony]

Thanks Lost and Mike. We might still get lucky with the rain that's forecast dampening the fires down.

For anyone wondering how to find sh2-308 you can go-to the brightest star in the image, SAO 172542.

[casstony]

Had another go at this one last night with the Apex 0.65 reducer on the TS115 - the object exceeds my processing skills though - need to do some reading.

[xelasnave]

I now have gear that is beyond my ability ... But enjoy trying to get all I can out of it...anything at all is good..I am 73 and need a walking frame ..it is a challenge...and then you realise there is just so much more to learn..
I still don't 2 star align and find objects manually through a finder..I some how enjoy the challenge of finding simething...and those times you have trouble finding it for whatever reason.. mmm it should be here but it's not..I Remember those stars..??? And I guess I would prefer to move manually to save battery power ..actually main reason besides the earlier reflection. Comes from feeding torch batteries to my first eq mount..it started as a money thing but I just don't bother with Goto oddly.
My trouble is I do so much to get ahead of myself...still I am old I can't wait around...not much time left for doing this you could think.
Alex

[casstony]

Yeah it's all good fun Alex. I go in and out to the imaging rig and enjoy just sitting looking at the sky while I wait for an exposure to finish.

It's looking mostly clear tonight so I might try adding a few hours to the image, then hopefully have to stretch less.

[LostInSp_ce]

It still looks amazing! :2thumbs:

[etill]

I tried this with my setup a few nights ago on quite a clear night. 2 hours of subs barely showed up the outline of one side of it. This looks like a great start.

It's on top of my list to go back and try again, perhaps after a little more practice or from somewhere further from the city.

[casstony]

One of the dual narrow-band filters or better still separate NB filters are a big help for this one Elliot.

[Ant0nio]

Beautiful shot of this amazing DSO with the Starizona reducer Tony. It puts just the right amount of space around it IMO. The reducer seems to be a winner too, nice stars corner to corner. Thank you for posting this Tony, I've been wanting to image this one myself but had trouble finding it, I used your SAO reference & got it center frame first go.
Cheers,
Tony

[casstony]

You're welcome Tony.
The Apex reducer is pretty good though there are astigmatic looking stars around the edge of field in the full APSc frame (easily seen in my recent Seagull image, also visible in Carina image).
Since it's such a strong reducer it's fussy about distance from the chip so hopefully I can improve the outer field with more experimenting.

[Sunfish]

Outstanding Dolphin Head.

[ChrisV]

That's really nice Tony!

[casstony]

Thanks Ray and Chris. I reckon I might be happy with about 4 hours total on this one. So many objects to image, lots of half done images, and now a different image scale with the 150ED opening up new interests - just need the weather to cooperate :)

[ChrisV]

I had a go at it the other night. I'd just finished modifying my CGEM mount with belt drive stepper motors and wanted to check the tracking. Did an hour and a half with osc, using a UVIR filter. Could hardly see the nebula above the background noise ! Shows how good the faux-narrowband filters are !!!

[casstony]

Yeah the L-Enhance filter is one of my most important bits of gear - quite the godsend for a casual imager.
I have a Baader 7nm Ha and 8.5nm OIII that I should probably sell as they're not getting any use. They take better images than the dual band but with more effort.

[etill]

Yeah, I'm definately getting some filters. I could barely see it after two hours when i tried a week or two ago.

I'm considering the l-pro or baader uhc-s first, I want to gradually filter more out, and the l-enhance is quite a bit more specific looking at it side by side with the l-pro.

[casstony]

The L-pro and L-enhance would be a good pair to have, though I'd recommend the L-enhance first since it makes imaging a lot easier under heavy light pollution/moonlight, even though it's not suitable for all objects.

[Fernando]

Such beautiful DSO! Great pic, Tony!!! I am hoping to image it this summer, when/if the clouds are gone...

[casstony]

Thanks Fernando. The weather is being very uncooperative here making it hard to get time on the multitude of summer objects. Orion will be gone before we know it.