Rho Ophiuchus Neb Region

[RB]

Here's my effort from Sunday night's session.

Antares and Rho Ophiuchus Neb region - a very feature rich section of the sky.

This was taken through the 20Da and 85mm lens set at f/2.2, ISO 400, autoguided by PHD and the DMK.
A total of 11 x 4 min subs were ave combined (darks + flats applied).

I was dissapointed once again that PHD kept crashing on me but I was speaking with Houghy and he suggests that maybe my USB cable is too long and I need to use an active USB cable instead.
Will give that a go next.

I was hoping on taking more subs as I don't think 44 min at ISO400 is enough but alas I was too tired from the all nighter we had the night before at the pony club and so I called it quits.

Well as always thanks for looking and your comments and suggestions are most welcome.

I've uploaded a larger version here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/RBantares08.jpg) (470k).

[[1ponders]]

Wow the 85 does a fantastic job with the FOV Andrew. Might have to look into one of them eventually. Which 85 was it f/1.2 or 1.8?

Nice processing btw ;)
:)

[leon]

Andrew, that is awesome, :eyepop: just look at all those stars great effort indeed, if only the weather would change down here. :sadeyes:

Leon :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

woo hoo - what a nice shot

[Zuts]

Hi Andrew,

Lovely shot. The mix of colours in the nebs looks great and the framing of the dark neb really sets it off. I tried for it the other night but couldn't get the framing right so went on to other targets, maybe next year.

I wonder if you and Mike could share your data and double-stack to get even more detail, FL is different but maybe?



Don't worry Leon. The weather in Ballarat will change for sure. It will get a lot colder :)

[Dennis]

Beautifully captured, composed and processed. A stunning night sky vista!

Cheers

Dennis

[seeker372011]

lovely shot..did you an mike decide to frame the object identically?

[iceman]

beautiful work, RB. lovely colours.

Narayan, RB helped me frame the object on saturday night , so i guess it's natural his ends up the same :)

[Deeno]

Exquisite!!

[RB]

Thank you Paul, glad you liked it.
I used the f/1.2 on this.
It's quite a difficult area to process and very hard to compress to the forum limit because it's got so much detail.
I'm setting up again tonight and try this area again with a different FOV and hopefully have guiding on it.
I was so dissapointed that my guiding keeps failing on me and it shows in the frames.


Cheers leon, hope you get some clear skies


Thanks champ !


It's such a lovely colourful region, I always return to it each year, glad you liked it.
I'll see what Mike says about a collaboration.
:thumbsup:

Thank you Dennis.


G'day Narayan, I love this section of sky and revisit it each year and do a shot.
It's funny but I was with Mike on sat nite but I didn't have my gear so like he said above, I was annoying him all night :whistle: but I set up the next night and I always try and frame it so the fingers run across or diag in the frame so the two images turned out similar. :lol:



Thanks Mike, I'm going to try it again tonight so wish me luck with the guiding.
I wish my PHD would behave like your's does. :(

[RB]

Cheers mate.

:thumbsup:

[Ian Robinson]

With such a wide fov , isn't autoguiding overkill ?

BTW : you have produced a wonderful photo ....


I bet the readers who live in europe and north america are all wishing they could get access to such southern delights , which pass directly overheat here.

[RB]

Thank you Ian.

With regard to autoguiding, my main aim is to get it working for me so I can image at prime focus.
As you know the longer the f.l the more you need guiding.

Having said that, I still would autoguide even at 85mm if I had the ability because this allows for longer exposures with nice round stars.

[Ric]

Fantastic image Andrew and it sits so well against that awesome backdrop of stars.

As I said with Mikes image, it reminds me of a giant celestial jellyfish difting along.

Cheers

[Garyh]

Very nice Andrew! :thumbsup:
Gives a nice FOV with the 85mm lense..
Don`t know why you need guiding but I hope you sort it all out!
Unguided I can go 3 min @ 200mm with 80% good on the g-8 and never get a bad one at 50mm even with a 10min sub.

[RB]

Thanks Ric, yes it does indeed look like a jellyfish, and so many stars in that region !

Cheers Gary,

I finally sorted out the problem, it was a faulty USB cable, I'm using an active cable now.
The issue with guiding really needed to be sorted out so I wanted to use the opportunity even with a wider fov.
I've always found your images fantastic and it shows you have great accuracy in polar alignment & balance.
Do you have a permanent setup or do you pack-up each night.

I'm still a ways off setting up an observatory so it's a real pain each time to setup and pack-up.

I must admit though now that my guiding is sorted, I'd prefer to use it with almost any fov.