NGC3242 with Hubble comparison

[SkyViking]

Hi all, this is the ever popular Ghost of Jupiter, Eye Nebula or just NGC 3242. I imaged it before a couple of years ago, but decided to revisit this beautiful target and see if some more details could be captured this time around.
This is an impressive target also visually. Very strong blue/green in colour. With a 16mm Nagler and 5x Powermate I was able to see the nebula pretty much as it appears in the image, although much fainter.

The image is a stack of 270 x 4.5s taken on 07/03/2010 with 10" Newtonian and ToUCam Pro SC1, no filters or guiding.

Hope you enjoy! All comments, critique etc. most welcome.

Regards,
Rolf

[lhansen]

Thats an astonishing image - well done

[CoolhandJo]

Very nice indeed :). Would be interested to know at what focul length you captured this image?

[seeker372011]

Rolf for a modded webcam , that is stunning-and only 4.5 second individual exposures-I wouldnt have thought it possible to extract that much detail

straight to the pool room

[RobF]

Wow - you must have beaten the seeing by taking so many short exposures. The resolution you have there is amazing. Top work and thanks for reminding us you don't need a top of the line SBIG to take good shots!!

[Bassnut]

Yes, thats an excellent shot, well done. With that result, I hope you try some other planetary nebs, quite a few are bright enough for short exposures.

[Bassnut]

And.....Ive been thinking about this image, that was clever using a webby and powermate. The 5*magnification retained the resolution I had a lot of trouble with a CCD at prime when I tried it, and the large number of subs substituted nicely for the pain of guiding/AO. Yes, goes to show you dont need expensive gear indeed.

[AlexN]

Fantastic effort.. and the comparison is quite amazing also... always remember when doing these sorts of comparisons... HST was a 100 billion dollar endeavor that cost substantially more than that once the optics were repaired and the cameras upgraded etc... I dare say your mount, newt and webcam did not cost you $100 billion + ? All things considered, you're image is rather amazing!

[TrevorW]

Bloody good image well done

[iceman]

Incredible work, nicely done Rolf. I love it when you do this stuff.

[SkyViking]

Thanks Lars :)







Thank you Dr Paul, Narayan and Rob. This was captured at prime focus with 1300mm FL. I did try with a 5x Powermate first, but the surface brightness was just too low. I've found that in general many shorter exposures ultimately yields a higher resolution, just like with planetary imaging.
I did use the powermate on the Humunculus Nebula recently (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=56087), but that one also has a much higher surface brightness.




Thanks Fred, your image of this one is also spectacular indeed. As explained above, I did try with the Powermate but there just wasn't enough light at that image scale, it was very difficult to focus and I got a petter result just by using prime focus. However I think a 2x or 3x Powermate would be well suited, but I only have the 5x.



Thank you Alex, no not quite $100 billion :) Yes the HST was expensive indeed, still great though to sit and drool over its images on a cloudy day. And it certainly is great fun to image the same targets and compare.



Thank you Trevor :)



Thank you Mike, I enjoy doing it as well.

[Lester]

Fantastic image Rolf, the comparison of detail is amazing with the Hubble image.

All the best.