Mike Lewis
Staff Member
So with no new astro data coming in since this past May I finally got down to seeing what I could do with my over 30 hours of data on this pair of objects.
This image represented a couple of 1sts for me. First time imaging a dark nebula as my primary object of interest and first time trying to collect and process multiple views to make into a mosaic. There were a number of challenges encountered, but not always in the places in the workflow that I expected them. I had some new artifacts in the red channel that are almost certainly due to some kind of a contaminant on the red filter - I was able to crop those out. I also appear to have gotten some other dust onto the system since I did my flats, so I had to crudely hand edit out a couple of obvious dust spots that were not fixed by my flats. The stitching process though, which I was initially not sure about, went together pretty smoothly in PI. The final result is far from perfect, but I think decent enough to post.
So this is 3 panels stitched together in 'portrait' mode, which is the orientation I had to work with, not being physically at my gear and unable to play with rotating things. This did not allow my to fit Barnard 150 (also called the Seahorse Nebula) into one frame, but when I decided to try a mosaic it was no problem. Once I realized how close the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) was, I decided well might as well try to include that too. The Fireworks Galaxy is so named because of the very high rate of star formation, probably induced from a previous interaction with another galaxy. Even in this small version the pink Hα star forming regions can start to be seen. This is an even more impressive target with more magnification than I can get with my currently mounted 580mm telescope. I am not sure but I think the faint red portions wisping through the image are actual faint clouds of ionized hydrogen, but I cannot verify that.
I ended up with approximately 10 hours of data on each of the 3 panels. Full collection details follow the image. And for those who want to zoom in, a higher resolution version is seen here on AB:
B150 and NGC 6946:
Equipment:
ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and
Gain:139 Offset:21 (Unity Gain)
Software Bisque MyT Mount
Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8
Innovations Foresight ONAG
Software:
Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8
Lightroom CC
Photoshop CC
Innovations Foresight SkyGuard
Light Frames:
Red:159 x 240 secs (10 hrs 36 mins)
Green:158 x 240 secs (10 hrs 32 mins)
Blue: 136 x 240 secs (9 hrs 04 mins)
30 hrs 12 mins total integration time
Dark Frames:
10 x 240 secs (40 mins)
Bias Frames
60
Flat Frames
10 each filter
Comments and critiques welcome!
ML
This image represented a couple of 1sts for me. First time imaging a dark nebula as my primary object of interest and first time trying to collect and process multiple views to make into a mosaic. There were a number of challenges encountered, but not always in the places in the workflow that I expected them. I had some new artifacts in the red channel that are almost certainly due to some kind of a contaminant on the red filter - I was able to crop those out. I also appear to have gotten some other dust onto the system since I did my flats, so I had to crudely hand edit out a couple of obvious dust spots that were not fixed by my flats. The stitching process though, which I was initially not sure about, went together pretty smoothly in PI. The final result is far from perfect, but I think decent enough to post.
So this is 3 panels stitched together in 'portrait' mode, which is the orientation I had to work with, not being physically at my gear and unable to play with rotating things. This did not allow my to fit Barnard 150 (also called the Seahorse Nebula) into one frame, but when I decided to try a mosaic it was no problem. Once I realized how close the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) was, I decided well might as well try to include that too. The Fireworks Galaxy is so named because of the very high rate of star formation, probably induced from a previous interaction with another galaxy. Even in this small version the pink Hα star forming regions can start to be seen. This is an even more impressive target with more magnification than I can get with my currently mounted 580mm telescope. I am not sure but I think the faint red portions wisping through the image are actual faint clouds of ionized hydrogen, but I cannot verify that.
I ended up with approximately 10 hours of data on each of the 3 panels. Full collection details follow the image. And for those who want to zoom in, a higher resolution version is seen here on AB:
B150 and NGC 6946:
Equipment:
ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and
Gain:139 Offset:21 (Unity Gain)
Software Bisque MyT Mount
Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8
Innovations Foresight ONAG
Software:
Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8
Lightroom CC
Photoshop CC
Innovations Foresight SkyGuard
Light Frames:
Red:159 x 240 secs (10 hrs 36 mins)
Green:158 x 240 secs (10 hrs 32 mins)
Blue: 136 x 240 secs (9 hrs 04 mins)
30 hrs 12 mins total integration time
Dark Frames:
10 x 240 secs (40 mins)
Bias Frames
60
Flat Frames
10 each filter
Comments and critiques welcome!
ML
