Eight Burst Nebula

[JoeyJoJoJr (Adrian)]

Any suggestions on how to improve the detail/sharpness during acquisition?

Due to the long focal length of the Celestron C8 I thought it might be interesting to capture planetary nebula. Would usage of a barlow be practical here? Even a 2x would bring the focal ratio up to 13 with reducer, 20 without however that might not be an issue as the tracking guiding is quite good with my setup at the moment

Eight burst nebula
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Celestron C8 w 0.63 focal reducer
Imaging cameras:ZWO Asi533MC Pro
Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM w/ OAG
Frames: 15x60"OPTOLONG L-PRO
Bortle 5
Live stack + simple manual stretch and colour balance + cropped

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Hi Adrian

You're off to a good start, accurate guiding and focus is the main criteria for imaging anything. Why not image the planetary at the scopes native F10 instead of using the reducer and using the reducer and barlow together is contradictory, they're both trying to achieve the opposite to each other. Why not get an 1.5X barlow if you want increased focal length but don't want to go to F20.
More exposures and increased exposure time per frame would also help.

[muletopia (Chris)]

Hello Adrian,
Recently in his forum I posed an image of he Eight burst nebula and I called it NGC3132.. it is only a very slightly cropped image.
This image was acquired at a focal length of 2464 mm and a QHY8l on shot colour camera. It is a stack of 20 225 second shots.The processing was with APP with the appropriate dark, flats and flatdarks. The integration Was just using defaults.
I think you need at least four times the exposure you have and don’t worry about your focal length
so, keep up the good work



Chris
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[JoeyJoJoJr (Adrian)]

Thanks for the advice, using the reducer and a barlow together would definitely be contradictory and just a stop gap until getting another barlow.

Something else I hadn't considered is how the guiding might be affected by a barlow since I use an OAG and already I'm only getting about 2 or 3 usable stars on average for guiding without having to rotate it.

@muletopia the image you posted is impressive. I'll give it a go at the greater focal length and for at least an hour and see if I'm able to obtain similar results.

[oska (John)]

Nice start Adrian. Getting enough stars at F10 on the OAG is a trial at times, I can't imagine how unfun it would be at F20 in most parts of the sky. I can't wait to see how you go.