NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula

[wayne anderson (Wayne)]

NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula from 8th Jan 2016

It has been so long since I have had the time to use the scope and do some imaging I almost forgot how to do it, so here is an attempt at NGC 2070. It may be only 135 mins of subs but it took me many hours to get everything setup just right and then many more hours to process the image, I am a bit rusty.

Integration time of 135 mins
30 x 3min Subs at iso1600 (Unguided) Darks and Bias added
30 x 1 min Subs at iso1600 (Unguided) Darks and Bias added
30 x 30 sec Subs at iso1600 (Unguided) Darks and Bias added

12" Meade LX200 at f6.3 (alt/az De-Rotated)

Sony NEX 5n DSLR Camera (full spectrum modified)

Processed with DeepSkyStacker, Startools and Gimp

[Somnium (Aidan)]

really nice image Wayne

[billdan (Bill)]

Beautiful image Wayne, sharp stars and good colours, and no guiding with Alt/Az, excellent work.

Clears up a mystery for me, that de-rotators actually do work.

Cheers
Bill

[5ash (Philip)]

Lovely image, lots of detail
Regards philip

[BruceG (Bruce)]

3 minutes unguided! You must have perfect PA. Very well done indeed!.
Love the detail and colour balance.
Bruce.

[wayne anderson (Wayne)]

Thanks Aidan, Bill, Philip and Bruce

Yes, the Meade de-rotators do work well but you need very accurate alignment of the optical train and very accurate alignment of sky and scope or the co-ordinates sent to the de-rotator will be out by just a small amount and will cause image drift and rotation.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Great work Wayne. That's a really nice looking result. Very pleasing colour and heaps of depth.

[raymo]

That's a good start to getting your hand back in.
raymo