The Prawn Nebula

[DavidTrap]

Here is my latest effort from the weekend at Ten Chain Hill - IC 4628 and an adjacent open cluster NGC 6242.

When researching targets on Astroplanner, I noticed these two would fit into the frame of the QSI - quite happy with the resulting composition.

The atmosphere was rather moist (Peter summed it up by saying if you had a cake of soap, you could have a bath out there) so the seeing wasn't the best.

I took 10 x 5min of RGB & 6 x 10mins of Luminance. I had hoped to capture another 40mins of Luminence, but the fog rolled in ~2:30am. I plan to add some Ha in due course.

Glad to hear any advice on processing this - it looks a bit pink to me.

Thanks for looking,

DT

[ozstronomer]

David That's a great shot, you should be happy with that one :thumbsup: The shots I've seen are usually pink so I think you are pretty close

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

Look at all that back ground dust! I didn't know that was there.
Love how you squeezed in the cluster in the top left.
Great image David.

[renormalised]

Nice shot:)

[Ross G]

A great photo David.

Excellent quality and great framing.


Thanks.

Ross.

[richardo]

Nice image David!
When I first looked I thought, mmm, framing's a bit off, but then after reading more thoroughly, realised you were after two for the price of one:thumbsup:.

This will look even better once you add the extra contrast and accentuated HII reds with the Ha.

Good stuff!

Rich

[DavidTrap]

Thanks for the comments,

Geoff - the shots I found quickly on the web were a similar colour. I'll have to scour the archives here to see what other examples have been posted.

Rich - it certainly needs a contrast boost. I don't think the detail is there in the current data - the limited seeing over the weekend may have limited the "crispness" of what I could capture. Hopefully some longer luminance subs and Ha will improve that. Looking forward to the Conference to hopefully learn a few tricks about processing!

DT

[Hagar]

Very nice David. If this image is done with the Tak then you can rest assured it is in collimation.
Stars appear a little over exposed and will need to be replaced with some shorter frames to get the star colour up a bit. All up though a very nice image.

[DavidTrap]

Thanks Hagar,

I do have some 5 min luminance subs that I could throw into the mix.

I am happy about the collimation of the scope. I ran the 2x2 bin subs through CCD inspector and it said all was good. Interestingly, the 1x1 subs had a slight "tilt". I think the problem was not having the focuser lock screwed down. The robofocus manual says to leave the lock unscrewed so that the motor is able to slide the drawtube in and out. Unfortunately, this allows some movement of the drawtube. I screwed the lock in so that it was just engaging on the drawtube and that seems to have removed most of the movement of the drawtube. In due course, I'll have a look at the PDF that was posted about adjusting the focuser - haven't had time to do that yet.

DT

[multiweb]

Your best to date David. Great star colours, excellent focus, nice colour balance. Text book shot. One for the cool wall. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Lovely looking image Dave, nice colouring :thumbsup: I tried to get that cluster too in my recent Prawn shot but couldn't fit it without the mage looking out of balance, so I left it out of the frame. I think a mosaic would be good here?

Mike

[Stevec35]

Nicely done - I don't see anything much wrong with the colour. To probably state the obvious, blending in some Ha would look great.

Cheers

Steve

[RickS]

Now we know what you were doing over in your canvas hotel suite, David :) Nice work!

[DavidTrap]

Thanks Marc & Steve - I'd still like a bit more contrast in the image though, hopefully the Ha will help.

Mike - can't believe you couldn't fit it in onto your big chip??!!!??!?!? Haven't had the guts to even think about a mosaic yet. At least the plate-solving made the meridian flip a non-event!

Rick - no reason why one can't be comfortable whilst astro-imaging! The 20m USB cable is working a treat. Only had to dash outside once when the slew went on for far longer than it should - managed to hit the stop button before it had choked itself with the cables! Glad to know the stop button on the hand controller over-rides commands coming in via the RS-232 port.

DT

[DavidTrap]

Thanks Marc & Steve - I'd still like a bit more contrast in the image though, hopefully the Ha will help.

Mike - can't believe you couldn't fit it in onto your big chip??!!!??!?!? Haven't had the guts to even think about a mosaic yet. At least the plate-solving made the meridian flip a non-event!

Rick - no reason why one can't be comfortable whilst astro-imaging! The 20m USB cable is working a treat. Only had to dash outside once when the slew went on for far longer than it should - managed to hit the stop button before it had choked itself with the cables! Glad to know the stop button on the hand controller over-rides commands coming in via the RS-232 port.

DT

[CoolhandJo]

Nice shot

[telecasterguru]

Nice image, well captured and processed.