First Neb with new Rig (M16 Eagle Nebula)

[Startrek]

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks or so at my Obs on the South Coast and although there’s been a few clear nights , the seeing has been terrible ( south westerly air streams ?? )

Last night was probably the only night worth imaging as the moon wasn’t up until after 10pm but unfortunately cloud rolled in at 9.30pm so only captured just over 2 hours on the M16 Eagle Nebula.
Conditions poor , Star scintillating like crazy
Acquired data was pretty good but noisy ( an additional 4 to 6 hours would have made a huge difference, but the bad weather continues….. )

This is my first “nebula” image from the new rig

NexDome Obs
10” f5 Klaus Helmerich CF Newt
Skywatcher EQ8-R pro mount
ZWOASI2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 100 LRN
TS GPU coma corrector
28 x 5 min dithered guided subs ( discarded 2 subs due to cloud )
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD, Stellarium and APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.65 to 0.75 arc sec total , chasing the seeing a bit )
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools V1.7 Compose Narrowband OSC Bi colour ( SHO matrix )

Comments welcome
Thanks

[Nikolas]

nice work for such a small window of acquisition mate can you tell us more about the newt? the diffraction spikes are almost non existent

[strongmanmike]

Well, an image, is an image...Sole, and it aint too bad in the end :thumbsup:

Mike

[Startrek]

Thanks Nik
Yeh a very small window of opportunity plus less than ideal sky conditions
I bought the Klaus Helmerich OTA tube only through Paul at Sidereal, they are the Aussie distributor. They are handmade by Klaus in Germany to most specifications ( I chose GSO ) 5 months lead time too. I bought my GSO gear separately and built the scope myself.
There’s quite a few reasons why this image doesn’t have prominent diffraction spikes -
1/ The L Extreme OSC narrowband filter tends to “soften” the spikes compared to RBG images

2/ Conditions were poor so SNR was down , noise floor high which tends to bury the spikes amongst the noise. When conditions are very good my spikes are spikes like swords

3/ M16 only has a hand full of medium sized stars which are picked up by my Newt.All my f5 Newts only show diffraction spikes on the brighter stars ( RC’s tend to pick up spikes on loads of stars ?? )

4/ I was to heavy handed with Star reduction and dampening the background

Here’s another version ( re process ) which shows the diffraction spikes a bit more prominent

Cheers
Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Mike
Appreciate it
I did a quick reprocess for Nik
Looks a tad better I think
I guess we are all still starved of quality sky time , when will we ever get a decent break from crap weather

Cheers
Martin

[Dave882]

Great result Martin and I imagine with some more favourable conditions you’ll get the full benefit of the longer fl & higher resolution, in the meantime you’re gathering photons at a much faster rate- very useful as well!

[Startrek]

Thanks Dave,
Yeh the new rig looks promising
I lose a bit of FOV compared to the 8” but trade that for more reach and like you said more signal

Cheers
Martin

[Startrek]

While the inclement weather continues on the east coast , spent a little more time on this image and squeezed out some more detail with a tad more contrast and colour
Also a cropped away a bit more to focus more on the central region and core areas
Still finding little techniques in Startools
I believe Ivo is working on V1.9 and still using 1.7 ( I’m just happy using the older version but I should get off my butt and upgrade )

I think it’s an improvement ?

Comments most welcome
Thanks

[croweater]

I like it Martin.Not sure about the stars though. They all seem a bit blue in this one. Take my comments with a grain of salt though. :)
Cheers, Richard

[ChrisD]

Very nice. I like it.

Chris

[AstroViking]

Looking good - although as Richard said, perhaps a tad too blue??

Cheers,
V

[Startrek]

Thanks Richard
Agree
I backed off the blue bias but not enough
As it’s a OSC NB bi color , you do get some background bias around the stars and bleeding behind the outer core areas
Still finding little techniques in Startools to clean up those annoying little anomalies

Cheers
Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Chris
Getting there
It’s tough work using a OSC and imaging NB

Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Steve
Agreed
Refer to my reply to Richard

Cheers
Martin