SH2-308 Dolphin Head Nebula

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Merry Christmas! Hope you've overindulged, just because

I've always wanted to get my own image of this nebula, it's a stunning target with its rich blue-ish colour and large size. Incredible to think that a single Wolf-Rayet star can produce such a thing. The again, WR stars are in a class of their own.

I found this difficult to process as the nebula's structure, mix of Ha and OIII and colour are subtle and it's taken perseverance and some PI magic to draw them out. There are still numerous aspects that I'm not happy with but as a first attempt and with 'only' 6hrs 20mins of data, it's been another good PI learning experience. Thanks for looking. Alex.

SW120ED x 0.85 Reducer/Flattener
92 x 240s (~6hrs 20 mins) Antlia Dual NB, ASI294MC
Darks, flats, dark flats. PI

Full size image here:
https://pbase.com/doogs38/image/173256946

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Alex- that’s an absolute gem of a shot. Right up there with some of the best.
You should be very pleased with your rendition.
Splendid.


Merry Christmas.
Well done.

[AstroViking (Steve)]

That's a "first effort"??

It's better than some of the "professional" images I've seen. Me thinks you are far too modest...

Cheers,
V

[Mickoid (Michael)]

I used to look in the Deep Space section to see the best images but now I find myself seeing some of them in the Beginners forum. Well done Alex, that's superb!

[oska (John)]

Fantastic shot Alex, top shelf, well done!

[LonelySpoon (Neville)]

Beautiful image, Alex.

The transparency really comes out.

Neville,
LSO

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Gosh, thanks for the encouragement everyone :-) I’ll get back to this target at some stage over the next few weeks and collect more data. Hope you are recovering from Christmas indulgences. Alex

[nosleep (Nick)]

Awesome ! I'm jealous you have had clear skies. Been total rubbish skies up here for ages. Keep up the great work.
Nick

[tc1 (Tony)]

Delightful Alex - well captured and processed.

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Thanks Nick and Tony.

Nick, the ACT has been cloud-bound for so long that I felt very spoilt to have 4 clear nights this past 2 weeks. When I last lived in SEQLD some 7 years ago, I lived near Rosewood and recall the night skies (especially winter) were always superb. I’ll be returning to SEQLD in 2023 and hope the La Niña settles down and clear night skies return, for us both :-) I’ll need to get reacquainted with the local dark sites.

[Ant0nio (Tony)]

You could head to the main forum with this one Alex.
It's not an easy target, well done .

Cheers,
Tony

[Dave882 (David)]

This is a beautiful image. one of the better dolphin heads going around. Well done!

[Nikolas (Nik)]

This is not beginners material mate this goes straight to the pool room in the main forum, excellent work!!

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Thanks Tony, Dave and Nik ... I'll be sticking in the beginners forum for some time to come I actually showed this one to a couple of the neighbours grandkids yesterday and they found it hard to believe that such things exist in the night skies! Alex

[PChis (Paul)]

A lovely image Alex! I really like the crisp edges around the head.

[ahmed_haider (Ahmed)]

You have no business here among beginners
JK though, this is stunning and because of superb images like this one I've learnt to head straight to beginners section and check out new posts here first before going to the big boys area
Well done sir!