M17 Swan ( Omega) Nebula under a Full Moon

[Startrek]

Ive been abroad for a few months, just returned home , and with a couple of clear nights in Sydney, decided to dust off the rig and image M17.

Full Moon
Bortle 8
Sky Conditions , poor seeing
8” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newt
Skywatcher EQ6-R pro mount
ZWO 2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 101
Antlia ALPT 5nm Dualband filter
TS Optics GPU coma corrector
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.75 to 1.0 arc sec ) guiding was poor due to conditions and seeing

95 x 3min dithered subs
40 x Flats
60 x Bias

Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools v1.8
AutoDev, Bin 70% , Crop edges, NB Wipe , Final AutoDev, Sharpen, SV Decon , Superstructure, Noise reduction
Had to deal with a lot of gradients even with using the Antlia filter but ultimately using a OSC it alway gets back to how data you can capture, the more the better. Under Bortle 8 and full moon staring down the end of the OTA a OSC needs loads of good data to produce a reasonable low noise high fidelity image. This image fell way short ( the clouds have returned ) Maybe in a week or two I can add more data under darker moonless skies.

Synthetic Luminance version
Synthetic Luminance Crop version
Colour version SHO mapping

Comments welcome

Thanks

[strongmanmike]

Ok, ok ...whoooo's addicted to this imaging game..?..huh? :rolleyes:...me neither :P :lol:

Meah an image is an image, nice, it fills a need, the capture process alone is cathartic...like something else I know..arhem...:drink:

Mike

[Dave882]

Great to have you back Martin! Nice detail in your swan and super tight. Well done!

[Retrograde]

Nice work and welcome back. :thumbsup:

[Startrek]

Thanks Mike , Dave and Pete
Glad to back in the best country in the world !!
I managed to scramble some sort of image out of poor data, the mounts guiding was chasing the seeing, only the odd excursion in Dec but Ra was see sawing a bit, round stars but every 5th frame or so stars are bloated along with resolution.The dew has been ridiculous in Sydney since I’ve been back , everything wet by 7pm
Looking forward to some dry westerly winds which usually arrive in August.
Seriously considering going Mono ( mainly for Sydney ) as OSC narrowband under Bortle 8 and a moon around is a damn struggle getting enough clean signal. Mono wins hands down under my conditions. Down south Mono would be unbelievably insane on my 10”
The Minister for finance ( Misses ) has approved the funds out of our retirement nest. Whoosh lucky me , sorry kids and grandkids

Thanks again
Cheers
Martin

[strongmanmike]

:clap: :drink: