Hello,
Here is an updated Saturn Nebula, aka NGC 7009, a Planetary Nebula in Aquarius at magnitude 8.3, size 28" laying some 3200 light years away. The central star has a magnitude of 12.8. My previous best effort is shown
here.
Tak Mewlon 180 F12 with Tak 1.6x extender giving F19.2 (3450mm), taken with an SBIG ST7. Brisbane, Qld, 9th October 2009.
Luminance: 6 x 10 minutes.
R, G, B: 1x10 minute each.
Calibrated, aligned, combined and maximum entropy de-convolution in CCDStack. Finished in CS4.
Overall, I am very pleased with the results; both in terms of how the system performed at this relatively long focal length and the general appearance of the final image.
There are some obvious faults; the max ent routine produced some dark haloes and due to frame drifting between exposures, it was difficult to normalize the background. The processing required to flatten the background and “render invisible” the frame overlaps has resulted in some unnatural looking stars and overall, the final result has the appearance of an image assembled from several parts, rather than looking like a smooth, integrated image.
However, I’m very pleased with my progress at capturing the data and making inroads into the LRGB process; Rome certainly wasn’t built in a day! Thanks for looking!
Cheers
Dennis