Following on from my image of the Lobster Nebula, this is the main event: M27 The Dumbell Nebula. A tricky subject from Griffith, with a maximum ALT of only ~33 degrees, and imaged here between an altitude of 20-33 degrees.
Rather than mess around with the teething issues i was having with SGPro and its focus and automated meridian flip routines - and potentially lose the available imaging time altogether - i went back to 'manual' operation with BYE. I must say that my enthusiasm for the hobby was tested having to get up at 2:30am for the last three nights (at close to 0 degrees C) to manually do the meridian flip and refocus!!
Anyway, here is my work so far, processed with PI v1.8. This is 84x4min subs (out of 126 subs in total) at ISO1600 with a modded 1000D and a Vixen VC200L at f6.4. These subs were acquired under less than ideal conditions - a slight breeze and virtually 100% humidity.
I thought it might be of interest to other DSLR users to see how many subs it takes to reveal the outer extensions of this planetary with a humble DSLR - if its even possible at all. So this thread is a "work in progress", and I will be updating with new images over the next month or so as I progressively collect more data. I have just today fitted dew heaters for the primary and secondary of my scope so hopefully that will help to keep the dew at bay.
