Until the weather closed in I’ve been having some late-night lockdown fun under the stars. Livestacking for 1hr per target and giving the L-extreme a workout I’ve found some really interesting detail when I could boost the exposure time a bit when the guiding is good enough (although some reflection nebula such as in M20 the narrowband kills it)
Here’s the lobster nebula NGC6357 with the histogram shifted a bit to reveal detail right at the heart of the nebula. The trade off is of course the wider field but I figure there’s plenty of top class shots of that already!
Livestack screenshot and a crop with a bit of a tweak in the histogram levels...
Edge800 & 0.7x reducer
CGEM
ASI294MC Pro & L-extreme
ASI290MM on an OAG
3000sec subs - x12...
ASIair Pro Livestacking with flats/darks/bias
Backyard Bortle 6/7
Thanks Peter!
Yes I’m really intrigued by this area right in centre of ngc6357 I believe it’s the open cluster Pismis 24. Theres some beautiful detail around it almost reminiscent of mini ‘pillars of creation’ that gets completely lost in some of the wide field photos because of its relative brightness. And I can only find a handful of shots of it online.
I can import the subs into my computer and post process (I’ve been plying with startools) so think I’ll give it another go maybe leave it running all night and see what comes up. Any advice how best to hit this one given the city light pollution?
Cheers
Nice job man. Lobster is my next one buti in typical wide view but now you gave me ideas - about the time I give a try to my Edge8 which I haven't even looked throuch since I got it - sad I know... But I'm making it my mission to try to get those pseudo-pillars sometime soon too.
Thanks Bohdan! Yeah it’s a slightly different perspective at longer fl and certainly the road less travelled. I think it’s pretty rewarding getting some of that fine detail in the middle and look forward to what you can come up with!
Having said all that I just set up the edge8 tonight with the Hyperstar...