M78 - This years attempt...

[AlexN]

After Queensland weather basically shutting the door on me last year, I started gathering integration for my M78 image very early this year...

Starting on the 4th of October, getting whatever integration I could between when the target was at 40° and sunrise, I stayed up for MANY nights, only to have clouds roll in after 2 or 3 subs (that ended up getting binned due to high altitude clouds.

We did however, finally get a few VERY nice nights with less than 25% moon just recently and I was able to get together 8hrs integration over those two nights.. Mixed with the few early morning short data sets that I had from October/November new moon periods, I was able to put this together.

M78.

260x180s subs (UV-IR cut only)
60x Darks
60x Flats
60x Flat Darks

Askar 120APO with 1x Field Flattener (840mm focal length)
Player One Artemis-C Pro IMX294 one shot colour camera.
Guided with Player One OAG and Player One Sedna-M IMX178 camera.
Emcan Astro EM31 Pro harmonic mount.

Captured with NINA, Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.

Astrobin Link

For comparison, I've uploaded last years effort, which was 80x300s L with ST8300M and 18x180s OSC frames from the IMX294 in my Askar 65PHQ. I feel like this is a pretty drastic improvement.

Thanks for reading!
Alex

[Dave882 (David)]

Mate that’s superb!! Huge improvement with the extra hours. Gorgeous detail in those reflection regions and the Ha is really prominent in the background. Love the colour. Great work!!

[Leo.G (Leo)]

That's beautiful Alex!

[AlexN]

Thanks guys. I was VERY happy to see this come together.

I'm still partially keen to throw another 10hrs at it, but with how few clear nights we get at the moment, I do want to tackle a few other targets... I'll see how I go

[Startrek (Martin)]

Alex,
Super image of M78
Framing , fine detail , contrast and colour is excellent
Well done !!

Cheers
Martin

[Bodon (Steve)]

Excellent very nice photo

[AlexN]

Appreciate the comments Martin and Steve!

I was not 100% sure on the colour (what with being colour blind and all) so I threw up a few examples that I knew would be bang on, then asked my mrs to explain to me 'in what way mine was different to theirs'. She highlighted that the dusty area in mine was very blue/green, and it was more red/browns in others images, so, with that information, I made a relatively blind adjustment of the histogram, bringing the reds up in the lower 1/4 of the histogram, and pulling a bit of blue from the low end (but masking out the reflection neb areas when I did that).

Sounds like that's not a bad step in my process!

[Nikolas (Nik)]

If it wasnt for a tree in my line of sight I'd love to image this, Very nice image mate.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

If it wasnt for a tree in my line of sight I'd love to image this, Very nice image mate.

If it wasn't for oxygen....
I have so many trees in my direct line of sight I'm seriously considering taking my gear up to a local lookout but not sure how the towns glow (city actually, very small one) may affect me.
This is only suitable for smaller easily transported equipment and a lot of time getting prepared I guess.


The beauty is we get to enjoy these targets we either can't get (blocked) or are too stupid to get (me) through the skill and grace of our members here.

[AlexN]

I regularly take my 120mm APO and all the gear out to a dark site to image, and certainly, with my smaller rig, taking it 45mins west for a 4~5hr imaging run is SIMPLE, as the whole rig runs on 12v DC power, it runs perfectly fine off my battery.

I'm lucky my yard has a nearly clear view in all directions. I can only image down to maybe 45° in the West, due to a tree line, and the neighbors TV ariel interferes with anything that is below 35° to the NNE. Other than that, I can lock onto M78 or M42 for example as soon as it hits 40° altitude (I choose not to image below that for seeing reasons) and image for about 6hrs uninterupted...

During winter when we get ~9hrs of darkness, I was able to get ~8.5hrs of data in a single night on M8+M20 (using a wider scope I was happy to shoot from 35° alt in the east through to 40° in the west, with a mount that does not do meridian flips)

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

As I said on AB, I think you have achieved your goal Alex, an excellent image of M78, beautifully processed and balanced, lovely stars that don't look "pasted" in.

Collected via a more traditional approach too, well done fella!​​​​​​​

Mike