How to satisfy imaging withdrawals
No imaging for some 6 weeks now (still in the middle of a mega data project that will now probably have to wait until next year to finish
).
Apart from a 3/4 moon, the seeing last night was in a word..?..
terrible but it was clear and although the moon was up..meah, I persevered
The seeing was about average at the start of the evening so I quickly grabbed some SII to complete an image of The Ghost of Jupiter that I had started waaay back in March, luckily the seeing for the Ha and OIII back then was really pretty good (seeing is
everything) so some rather fine details in this very tiny object (only 40"dia!) are evident even with just the 1120mm FL of the F3.8 AG12, after all it's only the same size as Jupiter on the sky
Ghost of Jupiter
After that however.... the seeing rapidly deteriorated
Soooo not to let a clear night go and given the withdrawals that are annoying my wife by now
...I thought meeeah I'll shoot somthing bright - the Jewel Box
The Jewel Box
And here is a
100% crop close up of the cluster
Theeeen the seeing became atrocious with a quick eye scan of the sky showing madly twinkling stars...but it was still clear and still air and cold and I am mad....so what the hell, I pointed the rig at The Trifid and proceeded to grab some data (imaging addict
) - the subs looked pretty sad and even after some processing magic unfortunately it shows in the final product
heck by the time I was collecting the blue data in the west the stars were like marshmallows and my guiding was commensurately rather erratic
...yes I could have used some decon but after having a quick tinker it looked worse
....
Any way here it is
The Trifid nebula
Satisfied anyway after a long clear all nighter
PS. as usual...no darks and no flats
Mike