Hi all
A few weeks ago I had a go at NGC 281 in Ha and 2 nights ago after being set up and ready to start imaging at 10.30pm the clouds suddenly came over and it started to drizzle (British weather version not Meade's envisage software version) so I quickly disconnected everything, put the scope cover on and took my laptop back indoors to do a bit of web browsing. Half an hour later it was time to take the 3 Amigos out for their last toileting of the night and I saw the sky was as clear as a bell so not to be outdone by the British weather I rushed in, got my laptop, reconnected everything, just checked the focus and had a go at the "Little horny devil" again, but this time I decided to try for some OIII and SII as well as Ha.
I managed to get 6x10 minutes unguided for each before it hit the meridian when the Paramount stops tracking (to prevent possible damage), although the sky was predominately clear for the rest of the night there were a couple of periods when some cloud went straight across where I was imaging but thankfully the sub frames looked ok.
The end result is below and I have included the full widefield shot as well as a cropped closeup of the nebula itself. I definitely need more exposure time especially for the SII and OIII channels as I had to work overtime on the noise reduction routines and gradient removal to obtain a reasonable image.
The image is dark subtracted using 10 dark frames median combined, but no flats or bias frames were used. I used the HST palette of SII=Red Ha=Green and OIII=Blue and although the colours aren't spot on I am pretty pleased with the results.
Thanks for looking
Best wishes
Gordon
http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/U...nSIIHaOIII.jpg
http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/U...HaOIIIcrop.jpg
With more data it will be a stunner.
