Planetary nebula duo and best Horsehead yet

tornado33 · #1 27-03-2006, 01:36 AM

Hi all.
Heres 2 of the deepest images I have ever taken.
Firstly 2 Planetaries for the price of one, the bright one is NGC 2899 on left, but at upper right is the much fainter Wray 17-31. This is my 2nd Wray planetary Ive bagged, but really cool to get it in same image as another planetary

Its a VERY long exposure, 3 x 20 mins ISO 400, really pushing my modded 350D for a total of 1 hours imaging time. Fully processed, dark and flat fielded in IRIS, ita all processed nicely with a munimum of fiddling. I might try and enhance it though to bring out the Wray planetary more.

Earlier, I tried a lot of shorter but higher ISO images of the Horsehead. My only hassle is I should have composed it to forget about the Flame nebula and have that and the bright star out of frame, as the star made all sorts of internal reflections including the large faint semicircular one. Anyway heres the final result, its 8 x 5 mins ISO 1600 also processed in Iris.

Both images through my 10 inch F5.6 newt, off axis hand guided and Baader UHCS filter and coma corrector used. Sky conditions near perfect, as good as it gets for suburban Newcastle.
Scott

tornado33 · #2 27-03-2006, 01:52 AM

Heres a bright version of the previous pic. Wray 17-31 more visible though NGC 2899 is way overexposed. There seems to be some unidentified diffuse faint nebulosity near top right edge too, I will see about investigating that in next few days.
Scott

EzyStyles (Eric) · #3 27-03-2006, 02:38 AM

That is an excellent find there scott. Near impossible objects and you did it! Spend a few hours trying to find Blue Planetary NGC3918 tonight but failed. How did you find those near impossible objects? would like abit of a challenge

The horsehead/flame is stunning. Never can get enough of your images. Keep it up scott.

tornado33 · #4 27-03-2006, 08:21 AM

Many thanks.
Id be lost without Pauls excellent Star Atlas pro software, with which I generated finder charts. The red rectangle outlines the actual field I will get with my camera and telescope, so I composed it by putting the brightest stars visible as they appear in the field. A few short exposures to verify I was on target and I was ready to go

.

Sky conditions were very good, and as my scope will be down while the mirror gets recoated I thought I may as well go "very deep" to see how things go.

Yes the Blue Planetary can be tough to find, sometimes ive really struggled to find it myself. Scott