Helix under some moonglow

[Nikolas]

I did 20 10 minute exposures last night, about 3 hours 20 minutes worth, had to take flats because the moonglow and upper air haze killed it in Melbourne. tonight would have been worse with the moon next to it virtually and its windy. Got a decent result but nothing compared to some of our imagers here. Please critique:
TS-Optics PHOTOLINE 130 mm f/7 NEq6 Pro and ZWO asiair asi 294mc pro asi 120mm mini guide cam
HA OIII extraction and recombination using Astropixel processor combined with the Optolong L-Enhance Filter(I wonder if the L-extreme would work better for this target)

[Placidus]

Given the aperture, exposure, and moon, that is an excellent result.

[Nikolas]

Thanks Mike

[Nikolas]

Any tips on how to image this so I can get more detail?

[Placidus]

Remembering that you're already doing quite well, the two biggest tips by far are:

- Long, long, long hours (especially for SII)
- The new moon half of the cycle (last quarter, new, first quarter)

(The long hours requires clear skies, which in turn requires sacrificing goats at the volcano)

[Cosmic]

Excellent data acquisition, you have done well all considered. You got nice colours, its just that moon its one bright lamp hey.
There maybe some drift in the images by the looks? You could possibly get more of a detailed sharper image, depending on mount + tuning.

[Nikolas]

I may have to try 5 minute exposures when I have the big scope on the mount it looks like 10 minutes may be the limit

[LewisM]

Rather good Nik!

[Cosmic]

Possibly or maybe some fine tuning of the worm in DEC and RA. I got to a stage where I felt that I needed better tracking/stars, as a result I bit the bullet and just rebuilt the neq6. Not hard at all, just something that takes time. Food for thought :) But like others have said, you're doing extremely well.

[Nikolas]

Mine has been rebuilt with the rowan belt drive, my Dec guiding is perfect, almost flat line with error of 0,2 but RA tends to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 error

[Cosmic]

Ar that's right you did to, but a 1.5rms spike in RA is a little frustrating. Maybe worth revisiting for further inspection, one less thing to worry about then. All in all the images you capture are great, well worth the look:thumbsup:

Clear skies.

[Nikolas]

When the weather and time permitting improves I'll have a look and do some adjustments I don't think it's anything major.
cheers

[codemonkey]

Nice one Nik, I like the colours and the structures you brought out.

[Nikolas]

Cheers Lewis

[Nikolas]

Thanks Lee

[ChrisV]

Nice Nik. The tendrils are looking good

[h0ughy]

Nice grab, looks good to me

[Nikolas]

thanks Chris, still got to do more hopefully later this week as it clears up

cheers mate

[gregbradley]

That turned out well Nik.

Greg.

[Nikolas]

Thanks Greg
It’s been tough to get a decent second night to add more data but I’ll wait for the right conditions