Tarantula nebula through an achromat on a chinese mount!

[Prickly]

Hi All,

Heres a photo taken by Ken Charlwood and I through the vixen 140 neoachromat on an Eq6 from the SPSP using Ken's very fine QHY8 camera.

We used a UHCS filter and a Williams optics 0.8x focal reducer.
Mild halo reduction in Images plus
Some very mild adjustment for distorsion in photoshop
Some minor processing - curves, contrast etc.

All went well till we drained Ken's batteries!

cheers
David

[Davros]

Spectacular, really sharp with nice colour

[iceman]

Nice image, was great to see you guys at it beside me at SPSP.

Always a problem when teh batteries go dead when the night is still young!

[Prickly]

Thanks Mike and Davros,

That eta carina came up a treat too Mike. Great effort (especially considering the wild winds!)

Guess the batteries etc is all part of the challenge.

Cheers
David

[Garyh]

Nice and sharp and love the colors!
cheers Gary

[Prickly]

Here is a reprocessed version - I've cropped to try and increase the scale to show the detail in the nebula a little more. Michael S. who was also assisting us suggested that the blue needed to be enhanced a little. So I've done that too.

[Zuts]

Hi Prickly,

The extra processing and the crop? makes for a far more enjoyable image in my opinion. Good stuff :)

Paul

[leon]

Yep, I agree it is a beauty, you have captured this one nicely, well done.

Leon

[Inmykombi]

What a fantastic image.
The detail you have captured is nothing short of spectacular.
I can see structure that I havent seen in many books I have bought.

I recently sold an EQ4 Chinese mount thinking it was " less than desirable" to keep for serious observing / imaging.
But you have proved me wrong.

Well done and keep up the good work.

PS. Always keep a spare battery pack ready........

Geoffro.

[Prickly]

Thanks Geoffro, Leon and Paul,

Thanks for the encouraging comments. Unfortunately its hard in the widefield view with the 200kb to show up all the detail so I thought I should crop out the main bit.

Yes the Eq6 with Kens ST4 autoguider really did a great job and I'm really happy with the way it came out.

We certainly learnt the hard way about the battery. Next year I'll bring a spare battery. Might have to invest in a trailer I think - the accessories seem to build up dont they.

Cheers
David

[winensky]

Great image. really exciting colours and lots of light. So sad the LMC is setting... so many fine nebulae.

[Tilt]

Yes it was good fun with Ken's QHY8, lets see what we can get with my 350D. The Canon stretched its legs taking some daytime SPSP photos but didnt get a go at the deep sky stuff.

[Ken]

Hi, the image looks great, with plenty of detail. You've convinced me that you can do great imaging with an achromat and a UHCS filter. :)
Clear skies
Ken

[Prickly]

Hi Winensky (good idea by the way- I think we are on the same wavelength!), Michael and Ken,

Yes, I think the achromat-UHCS combo is not to be underestimated. Having access to a QHY and autoguiders also helps somewhat (I think I'm convinced about the QHY8 now too Ken). Having compared to some other tarantula images (even 5-6 inch apos) I think its not too bad.

Having said I can feel a 350D imaging session coming on Michael. Pity we ran into the slight technical problems with the battery at Wiruna but at least you now have the gear Michael so we can give it a run over here. I'm convinced it is possible to get good results unmodded so well give it a go! Obviously less sensitive to Ha but not impossible to pick some up I think. We will have to resort to hand guiding which will be fun.

Cheers,
David