Managed to get 12x5 min of this faint beast with the QHY8 and 5" refractor before the rains set in again. Its had more processing than Phylis Diller so Ive kept it soft but I need far more data to smooth the whole thing out as its just soooooo faint I couldn't believe it, but I dont know when the rain will let me as it looks like its socked in for the next week or so.
At least the guiding etc was fine.
Comments welcome.
Peter and Doug
You are both right. The image is small due to gross processing and it needs 10-15 min subs and about three hours worth of them to do this object justice. It is such a pretty object that it needs good data or it's not worth doing. I was just caught out by how damned faint it was as I hadn't imaged it before.
Coming along nicely Allan. You can already see the different shades of deep red on the outskirt and the star colors in the central clusters are nice too.
Image was done on the night of Jan 2nd. Got just over the hour before the phdguiding started bleeping that cloud had come in. Guess that that's the advantage of an observatory in that you just flick a switch, wake up the mount, slew to the object and start imaging. When you have finished, park and switch off and then cover the mount and scope and then lock up. I'll be happy when I automate the dome this month. That will make things very easy.
Last edited by allan gould; 08-01-2011 at 09:48 PM.
