Winter Wide-Field Ha

[MapleRidge]

Good day everyone...

The recent posts by Pedro showing his results with wide-field imaging inspired me to try this...by no means are they very good but just showing my first results. Focus certainly needs to be tighter and I need to brush up on my image processing The images were captured on the night of February 7th with my cooled ASI294MM camera, an Astronomik 12nm Ha filter, and a camera lens. This setup was piggy backed on the C14/Takahashi EM400 mount.

The first image was taken with a Rokinon 14mm lens set at f5.6, and is a stack of 20x3 minute exposures. It always amazes me how many H II emission nebula the Ha filter can highlight along the Milky Way. The image is roughly centred on Orion and covers Canis Major/Canis Minor/Monoceros, southern Gemini, Taurus, and norther Eridanus.

Orion_Wide-Ha_14mm_20x180sec-DDP.jpg (1.05 MiB) Viewed 1231 times

The next two images were taken with a Smayang 85mm lens set at f2.8...the first is centred on Central Orion and is a stack of 20x2 minute exposures:

Central_Orion-Ha_85mm_20x120sec_DDP-FF-DDP.jpg (866.28 KiB) Viewed 1231 times

The second image with this lens covers the Rosette and Cone Nebula regions and is a stack if 21x2 minute exposures:

Rosette_Cone-Ha_85mm_21x120sec_AA-DDP.jpg (1.68 MiB) Viewed 1231 times

Much more work ahead to refine the capture and processing but I'm looking forward to the results.

Brian

[ffellah]

These are very nice and interesting, Brian. Keep them coming !

Franco

[Montana]

Oh my!!!!!! you must have dark skies, I wouldn't have a hope

The only place where I came remotely close to a dark sky was in Tenerife and I didn't get long enough on the trip up the mountain

Alexandra

[pedro]

Great Wide field Ha images Brian. Looking good

If you use BluXTerminator in PixInsigth you can correct for coma and other stuff

[KMH]

Those are really beautiful, Brian!

Kevin

[rigel123]

These are great Brian! Alexandra, with narrow band filters like Brian used you would be amazed at what you can pick up in light polluted skies!

[rsfoto]

Hi Brian,

Excellent DSO images. I am waiting to get a new telescope which is an ASKAR 103APO as I sold back the Takahashi FSQ-106ED I had bought from a friend in need of cash and now he bought it back.

Expect to get it some day next week.

[MapleRidge]

Thanks to all for your comments on the images..always appreciated

Pedro, I have yet to get acquainted with PixInsight but I did download the trial last week. These had limited processing, dark subtract, stacked and digital development in ImagePlus and a final tweak in PhotoShop. I neglected to detail the processing.

Alexandra, as Warren pointed out this was a narrow band filter so it is better able to deal with light pollution. My skies are slowly brightening, but on good nights in the Bortle 4 range. The Seestar uses a Duo-band Ha/OIII filter that should help with the sky conditions you have, but I'm not sure what the bandpass is. I see numerous images posted form urban locations and they are getting good results. It maybe a good investment for you to revive your night time astronomy interests.

Rainer, do you have a specific use planned for the new scope (deep sky, solar, other)?

Brian

[Montana]

Pedro, what is coma?

Alexandra

[rigel123]

Pedro, what is coma?

Alexandra

Coma is when you don’t have a flat field across the entire FOV and the stars look like little comets all around the edge of the field. Some scopes are corrected for this or you can add a field flattener to help compensate for it.