Saturn Nebula

[lazjen (Chris)]

This Saturn Nebula is from last night in the backyard. I hope to do better one day - perhaps when it's not blowing madly, the moon is not rising and I can do longer exposures. But I take what I can get.

ISO 1600, 30 sec x approx 30 frames (not sure how many DSS chose).
Darks - 53
Flats/Dark Flats 20

It's cropped/zoomed to show the nebula more.



I've got a barely less-lossy version on my google+ page: https://plus.google.com/117947786043...ts/fFuaTuaZ1DU

[Rex]

Nice capture Chris. That's a bright little sucker! Like you said a little noisy, but more time will help that. Tracking looks good by the way. I here what your saying about take what you can get, that's the way it has to be I think.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Nice effort Chris

Jo

[lazjen (Chris)]

Thanks Jo, Rex.

Originally Posted by Rex

Nice capture Chris. That's a bright little sucker! Like you said a little noisy, but more time will help that. Tracking looks good by the way. I here what your saying about take what you can get, that's the way it has to be I think.

Yes. Looking more closely I think I could have tightened the focus some more. Thanks to Astrotortilla, I'm getting setup and aligned quicker and the quality of the alignment has also improved such that the guiding becomes smoother which of course helps get the images needed - my failure rate for subs has dropped too.

The brightness is interesting. I think I could go to a better ISO for the same time period (so maybe ISO 800 30 sec) and get a better image overall after stacking. The key part of the frame is the nebula as there's not much else that's really visually interesting right near it, so the shorter exposure might work.

I tried the 2x Barlow tonight, but the wind was obnoxious and I couldn't get a guide star to use.