North America Nebula

[JimFox]

I caught this down on Molas Pass south of Silverton in SW CO. I have not shot Deep Space Astro from there before, but knowing that area (It's one of my favorites) and knowing how dark it gets at night, I figured it would be a really good dark sky to shoot deep space in. The problem was the moon. Due to the grandkids week of rehersals and recitals the previous week, I was prevented from going out that week when the moon was not up at all. Now I had to shoot with rather large moon that wasn't setting until about 12:30am or so. Which only left me about 4 hours to image.

I got the Deep Space rig set up at twilight, right after I had gotten 2 cameras going for Milky Way timelapses. Once I was polar aligned and tested, I let it sit there for a few hours until closer to midnight. This isn't perfect by any means, but each time out is a learning experience and a building experience of practicing Deep Space Astro techniques.

You can see the Milky Way dust in the bottom and left sides. You can see the Pelican Nebula to the upper right of the North America nebula. I stacked and stretched this a bit in DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. Then ran it in Starnet++ to remove the stars. I then stretched and massaged that without the stars (So the stars dont get too bloated). When done with that, I then used the Light Mode overlay in Photoshop to blend the stars back in from the older layer.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

SkyGuider Pro
Nikon D850 - Not Modified
Tamron 150-600mm

70 - 120 sec, ISO 800, f6.3 @ 300mm
Darks - 15
Flats - 20
Bias - 20

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great work here Jim, this looks pretty spectacular to me.

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks quite nice for an unmodified DSLR space image.

 

[chuckp]

Excellent Jim, great job on processing.

 

[JimFox]

Great work here Jim, this looks pretty spectacular to me.

Thanks so much Ben!

 

[JimFox]

Looks quite nice for an unmodified DSLR space image.

I did get almost 2.5 hours of data so I know that helped for sure. Thanks!

 

[JimFox]

Excellent Jim, great job on processing.

That means a lot coming from you Chuck!

 

[Mike Lewis]

Jim,

you are really starting to get the very best out of your data and gear. This is one of your very best. It does help that these are 'relatively bright' deep sky targets, but youm still have excellent color and contrast and your work with Starnet++ has really paid dividends here as well. The framing at 300mm is very nice too. I am working on a North America (I guess that is the correct name although I have used both myself) nebula image that is pretty much just the wall section, shot at almost twice your focal length with my telescope. It will be a narrowband bicolor image with RGB stars (thanks also to starnet).

Anyway, this is a very special result you have here!

ML

 

[Alisa]

Very nice Jim!

 

[JimFox]

Jim,

you are really starting to get the very best out of your data and gear. This is one of your very best. It does help that these are 'relatively bright' deep sky targets, but youm still have excellent color and contrast and your work with Starnet++ has really paid dividends here as well. The framing at 300mm is very nice too. I am working on a North America (I guess that is the correct name although I have used both myself) nebula image that is pretty much just the wall section, shot at almost twice your focal length with my telescope. It will be a narrowband bicolor image with RGB stars (thanks also to starnet).

Anyway, this is a very special result you have here!

ML

Thanks so much Mike. As you know, it's all a process and practice makes perfect. The more I do it, the more comfortable I feel.

 

[Amy Nelson]

They just keep getting better and better....all you hard work is paying off....amazing image!

 

[JimFox]

They just keep getting better and better....all you hard work is paying off....amazing image!

Thanks Amy! I appreciate those kind words.

 

[David S]

Wow, thats super rad ! I know nothing about it but its sweet science !

 

[JimFox]

Wow, thats super rad ! I know nothing about it but its sweet science !

Thanks Dave! For years, that was me, just enjoying the views of Deep Space. It's been fun to start capturing them.

 

[Todd H]

I caught this down on Molas Pass south of Silverton in SW CO. I have not shot Deep Space Astro from there before, but knowing that area (It's one of my favorites) and knowing how dark it gets at night, I figured it would be a really good dark sky to shoot deep space in. The problem was the moon. Due to the grandkids week of rehersals and recitals the previous week, I was prevented from going out that week when the moon was not up at all. Now I had to shoot with rather large moon that wasn't setting until about 12:30am or so. Which only left me about 4 hours to image.

I got the Deep Space rig set up at twilight, right after I had gotten 2 cameras going for Milky Way timelapses. Once I was polar aligned and tested, I let it sit there for a few hours until closer to midnight. This isn't perfect by any means, but each time out is a learning experience and a building experience of practicing Deep Space Astro techniques.

You can see the Milky Way dust in the bottom and left sides. You can see the Pelican Nebula to the upper right of the North America nebula. I stacked and stretched this a bit in DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. Then ran it in Starnet++ to remove the stars. I then stretched and massaged that without the stars (So the stars dont get too bloated). When done with that, I then used the Light Mode overlay in Photoshop to blend the stars back in from the older layer.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

SkyGuider Pro
Nikon D850 - Not Modified
Tamron 150-600mm

70 - 120 sec, ISO 800, f6.3 @ 300mm
Darks - 15
Flats - 20
Bias - 20


View attachment 40584

Sweet!

 

[CRTAstro]

Great job Jim !