Thor's Helmet NGC 2359

[spearo (Frank)]

Hi
It's been a veritable drought for me not having been able to image in a long time. What's worse is I'll soon be unable to image for a few weeks...
Oh well,

I did have a quick go the other night at Thor's Helmet but without much success. I had tried quite some time ago with 10 min exposures at ISO 800 with the 20Da but didn't get to capture much nebulosity at all using the C9.25.

This time, racing the Moonrise of course, i thought i'd try 10 min at ISO 1600.

processed quickly this is the result.

hope the skies clear up for you guys!
cheers
frank

[spearo (Frank)]

oops
here it is
f

[matt]

Very nice Frank

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks Matt, the pic had bad artefacts in it so i just replaced it seems better now
cheers
f

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

Thor's Helmet is one of my fav!! thats a great image their frank and you should be proud. A hard objec to image. Is that just 1 x 10 mins at ISO 1600? focal reducers?

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

oh didn't see it, 4x

[acropolite (Phil)]

Nice image Frank. Not a subject that we see that often.

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks guys, Phil, you're right we dont get to see it too often, Eric yes it's 4x 10 min (i was racing the moon...)
the focus is a tad off, and the processing is making it worse i'm afraid...
it'll drive me bonkers to have to wait a long time before i can try again. Then again, this might be as good as I can get it with my curent equipment (hope the girlfriend reads this and offers to get me a new mount and 16")
:]
frank

[spearo (Frank)]

I reloaded the image with slight improvements in the processing
cheers
frank

[RB (Andrew)]

Beautiful capture frank.

Well done.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

If only it looked this good through the eyepiece.
Thankyou for posting.

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks RB and JJJ
f

[h0ughy (David)]

well to me thats awesome!

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks Houghy
i'm blushing! Someone with better gear should be able to get a much nicer pic, I think this faint DSO pushed the limits of my equipment. I could possibly do better with more light frames but at the time that was all i could get before our friend the Moon crept up over the horizon. I'll try again in a couple of months i think.
cheers
frank

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow that's fantastic! One of my favourite objects!

[Ric]

Thats a great image Frank, thanks for posting it.

Cheers

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks Mike and Ric.
Hope to get a sharper image someday soon.
cheers
frank

[Garyh]

Well done Frank nice image, done well considering the large scale and that the seeing hasn`t been the best lately. Its something thats on my list to have a go at soon!!!
Cheers and Cs Gary

[2020BC (Bill Christie)]

Very nice capture of a great nebula. Well done.

[spearo (Frank)]

Thanks Bill and Gary,
let's all hope for clear skies for comet C2006P1 !
cheers
frank