NGC3242 Ghost of Jupiter-close up

[Bassnut]

Hi Guys

Late last night patchy clouds came in so I dumped the usual long exposure pain, and took this pic through sucker holes with short exposures. I only got 1 hr total in before shut down, at about 2am.

Its very small, but also bright, especially OIII, huge ADUs with just 2 min subs :eyepop:. I was suprised, I dont think ive ever got away with 2 min NB subs on anything !.

Anyway, this is 4 off 10min 3nm Ha subs, 6 off 2 min OIII and 2 off 5min SII (both 6 nm). Mapped as LRGB (hubble), all at bin 1 . SII was a joke, almost nothing.

I was lucky enough to find a bright enough guide star to fire up AO8 guiding at 2hz. The guide star was mag 10, 0.25sec exposures is unusual for this mag (I think), so the seeing must have been quite good, despite the full moon and bright clouds everywhere.

Guideing error was about 0.2 arc/secs RMS although the pk/pk could have been 1 arc/secs or more.

The Saturn neb is some 16 arc/secs in diameter, about 25 pixels at my image scale and FL(0.68 arc secs), so this image is VERY cropped, the raw subs were fairly blocky before processing, hence the focus doesnt look very flash at all :P.

Anyway, given the FOV it came out OK I think, AO saved my ass here from a even more blurry mess :thumbsup:.

Also on my site (http://fredsastro.googlepages.com/) at a slightly higher res.

[multiweb]

Haha! That's awesome! Extreme NB with narrowfield. :lol: :thumbsup: :prey2:

[DavidU]

LOL, how kewl Fred !!!!

[Omaroo]

Beautiful Fred. Given the trying conditions, a real winner. Suckerholes, schmukerholes - annoying aren't they? Well done :)

[Bassnut]

Thanks Marc, well, exteme at a cost ;)



Thanks Dave



Well, the sucker holes themselves were OK, its waiting for the buggers that sucks, and clouds make the sky sooo bright.

[sjastro]

Nice one Fred.

I'm tempted to take the C11 out of mothballs and doing some imaging at >2800 FL.

Steven

[mill]

Nice image Fred :thumbsup:
It is a tiny little sucker isn't it?

[Bassnut]

Oh yeah, do it :thumbsup:. I miss the 12" at 3m. 10" is a suprising increase in exposure time.

Its hard, but over 2m is well, differenter and more challenging and obviously betterer. Croping the hell out of pokey refractor pics is well, marginal, and way too much harderer, even on an AP :poke: :scared3:

[Bassnut]

Yes it is, bloody small, 4m FL would be nice (well, and 14-20") :P

[AlexN]

Very cool! Much more dedication shown when imaging long FL than cropping a widefield shot!

Bravo chap!! :)

Ps - put the 12" up on the PME, sell the 10" RCOS.. then your costs are not so extreme, and the results would be similar if not better given local sky conditions.... Just a thought.. :D

[Bassnut]

Thanks Alex :)

Actually, im kidding, ive seen some very good close ups on refractors, and given the apature, must be much harder ;)

Yes, ive considered putting the 12" up, but setting up everything again (image train adaptor hell, pointing map, FOV indicator, focus max etc) makes it just too hard on a whim, and the RCOS is soo stable.

The last time I tried the Meade, there was something very wrong with images (with the long image train, same as the RC plus a focuser, stupid long), havent worked that out yet, could be way past the back focus, whatever it is on an SCT, cant find out. Ive seen an image train that long on Astro anarcys site, but with a FR, seemed to be fine, although counter intuative (doesnt a FR reduce back focus?). Fitting the FR is more adaptor hell, its starting to get unwieldly and unstable :mad2: :shrug: (the ST10/filter is way heavier than a QHY).

mmm, come to think of it, I must ask Stuart how he does it.

[seeker372011]

:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop:up close and personal..

[rogerg]

Very nice image Fred, great detail. I find this object quite fun to image - it's brightness and position in the sky are quite good.

[Bassnut]

Thanks Narayan, Roger.

Yes, the brightness makes it a pleasure to image.

I got the name wrong, its "Eye nebula", or "Ghost of Jupiter".

[trent_julie]

Very nice indeed Fred.

[telecasterguru]

Fred,

You can see in the image what looks like the neb is starting to go middle elliptical with the bright rim starting to push out the halo at the bottom and the top.

Fantastic image.

Frank

[tonybarry]

I can only echo others' admiration. A great effort.

Regards,
Tony Barry

[Lester]

Very nice image Fred showing the structure of this planetary well.

I hope to do this with my 14" SCT soon when I get the OAG working.

All the best.

[strongmanmike]

Hmmm?...at first I thought you had done the ol' looks like detail but is really just processing artifacts trick again ;)..but nup, comparing to Hubble shots I think the mottling in the halo is indeed (at least mostly) real :thumbsup:, nice job.

Now I would like to see a crop of just the inner ring too please...and maybe the pointed ends of the inner oval, or.....oh sorry your field is already sooooo small you can't do that huh? DOH :sadeyes:

;) :rofl:

Mike

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Beautiful!
I tried the same object only to realise I' dforgotten to put a card in the DC!
Images like this only re-inforce my opinion: "Leave it to the pros!" :D
Thanks for posting.

[Starkler]

Is the green the SII ? The two greenish looking stars inside the halo are only just discernible in other pics I have viewed of this object. Their prominence in your pic makes me suspect you pushed the SII too far?

[Bassnut]

Thanks Trent :).





Thanks Tony :)



Lester. Yes, the extra resolving power and photons would make this a doddle for a 14", made for it. And the OAG at that FL would be required too , specially for NB.



Thanks Mike.Well, thats the thing about NF, no zooming for variety unforch :sadeyes:, and ofcourse nothing like the sharpness and detail WF can offer, the asthetics are quite different.

What im missing, is the 2 little red tails. Theyre quite bright on the hubble pic, SII I suppose, got none of that in the subs at all.



Green is Ha, and they are there. I have noticed stars subdued in the middle of other Hubble planetary nebs, I wonder if the lower them for effect. Of course they maybe just very tiny like they should be, given they are point scources and no atmosphere to bloat them ;).

[Bassnut]

Thanks Peter. Hardly Pro ;), this one wasnt that hard to take given the short exposure times (and a stable rig). Processing was quite different though.

hehe, ive done that several times (forget the card) thinking I had "save on PC" clicked (but haddnt). Several subs on this pic were lost due to not having cooling on, theres always something :P

[gregbradley]

Super image Fred. Extremely close up and detailed. Amazing for a 12 inch scope. Your ACF12 inch continues to impress. What a great buy that was.

Greg.

[AlexN]

Greg - This image was taken with a 10" RCOS.

[jase]

Tip o' the hat Fred. Ballsy comes to mind. Good to see you pushing your gear around to nail the small angular sized targets. Well done mate.

[Bassnut]

Cheers Greg, Jase.

Hopefully ill get to use the 12" in the future.