Bubble area wide with color

I got few frames of OIII two days ago and hopefully some more but the weather forecast doesn't look too good for that. And there's only less than a week to go before the astronomical darkness ends at my latitude.

Here's 5*1200 sec of OIII (binned2*2) added to 4hr30min of Ha. Again a bicolor picture with synthetic green channel.

And here's 100% crop of the NGC7635 Bubble Nebula.

SH2-140, SH2-145 and SH2-150

This was my previous project which was imaged on two nights about a week ago. I have done only one narrow band image earlier (M97) so the processing took a while. I took the images under almost a full moon with narrow band filters (Ha, OIII and SII). But the SII data (about 3hrs) was so week that I decided to forget that one and decided to make a Bicolor image with Ha and OIII with a synthethic green.

These three Sharpless objects are located also in the constellation Cepheus. The hydrogen alpha is showed as red and the OIII as blue. Green channel is combined with these two.

Exposures: Ha = 8*1800sec and OIII 6*1200sec (bin2*2). Total 6hrs.

Bubble area project

My previous test exposures showed so interesting area that I decided to start a new project with it. This is propably going to be the last one for this season...

Last night I took 4h 30min of Ha exposures with 1800 sec subs. Here's what it looks like:

I also made a starless version of it. This may have better view of the nebula itself.

Bubble area wide

Few days ago while waiting the "main" target to pass meridian I took few images of the famous Bubble nebula area (NGC7635). The image is only 30min of Hydrogen Alpha (6*300sec) and binned 2*2, but the main thing is that I took them unguided. So again points to MesuMount2!!

The picture has not so much of details because of binning but instead quite a nice wide view of the area. About the center is SH2-157, little bit down and left is Bubble Nebula and M52 beside it and the left large nebula is designated SH2-161. There's also SH2-158, SH2-159 and NGC7510 in the image.

LBN550, LBN552, LBN555 and LDN1228

Again some rarely imaged parts of the sky. Northern part of constellation Cepheus has this pretty nice looking bright nebula, LBN 552.

I had less than 6 hrs of total exposure so I'm not quite satisfied with this yet but no can do! Moon is groving again and the dark time is decreasing rapidly. There's not even a month to go with this season...

Here's LLRGB image with 5h 45min of exposure (L= 17*900sec, RGB=3*600sec bin2*2).

LDN1235 and Vdb149+Vdb150

Finally some serious imaging!

Few clear nights so aimed my system to constellation Cepheus.

The dark part of the image is LDN1235. Blue reflection nebulaes are objects of the van den Bergh's catalog. The one in the left is Vdb149 and the other Vdb150.

i had some minor problems during this session. First night I had USB port failure after 4 hrs and the other night I modified the CCDCommander imaging script I forgot to check the timing. So everything worked well but because of my mistake the script ended about two hours before dawn. But no can do...

Here's 7hr 45min of LRGB exposures (L=19*900sec bin1*1, RGB=10*450 sec bin2*2).

First proper testing of equipment

FINALLY!! After almost two months of clouds and rain there was a clear night!

It took about an hour to align the mount, calibrate the autoguider and make some V-curves for the FocusMax but then was time to start imaging. Everything started to work without a single problem and I was quite relieved. Mount was guiding smoothly (error below 0.3 pixels with internal guider's chip and unbinned).

I aimed the system towards NGC7023 in Cepheus. Took some Luminance and then RGB-channels. But, as usual, the fog came and stopped me after about 4 hours.

Here's LRGB image with about 4hrs of exposure (105:50:50:50 min). L unbinned and RGB binned 2*2.

Here's about the full frame.

Here's cropped version

I'll need to take much more Luminance to dig out those darker parts. So there's more to come...

My APM's original focuser was crying trying to carry all the weight of the STL. And it really can't handle it so I've already waiting for Feather Touch's focuser.

Elephant's Trunk - Reprocessed

Here's reprocessed version of the Trunk.

I tried to make image brighter and enhance contrast.

NGC4244 and NGC4214

Here's only Luminance channel for now. I took all color channels also, but somehow image center moved so the NGC4214 is too close to the edge of the frame. So I have to take them again...

NGC 4244, also Caldwell 26, is an edge-on loose in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is part of the M94 group (the Canes Venatici I Group), a galaxy group relatively close to the Local group containing the Milky way. It shines at magnitude +10.2/+10.6. Its celestial cooridinates are RA 12^h 17.5^m, dec +37° 49′.

NGC4214 is a barred irregular galaxy about 13 million light-years away.
 

Total exposure of this Luminance image is 6hrs (15min subs binned1*1).

IC1396 - The Elephant's Trunk Nebula in HaRGB

I got 1 hour of each color last night, so here's the HaRGB image of IC1396.

Total exposure is 9hrs (360:60:60:60). All binned 1*1, Ha 30min subs and RGB 10min subs..

IC1396 - The Elephant's Trunk Nebula in Hydrogen-alpha

I had one galaxy project going on, but about 70% of moon made me take some Hydrogen-alpha images.

I aimed my set-up towards Elephant's Trunk Nebula which is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust in the star cluster IC 1396 and ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth (wikipedia).

I took 10*1800 sec exposures, 5hr total. Here's quickly processed version.

DWB111; The Propeller Nebula

Another one taken with APM 80/500 triplet. This was also imaged in early March, but it took almost two weeks to process it. This can be found in constellation Cygnus.

Exposure of this HaRGB image is 9*1800 sec of Ha (bin1*1) and 6*450 sec of RGB (bin2*2). Total 6h45min.

Messier 53 with NGC5053

I wasn't satisfied with my EQ-6's performance with C8 so I changed to a smaller scope, APM 80/500.

Last week I took pictures of three different objects but hadn't had time to process them. These two globular clusters was a perfect shot for the short refractor. They can be found in constellation Coma Berenices.

Exposure of this LRGB image is 285:30:40:45 minutes.