Trifid, Lagoon etc. Work in Progress

[MarkS]

My first deep sky image for months!

The Trifid, Lagoon and other friends from Saturday night.  H-alpha modified Sony A7S on Tak Epsilon 180ED. 50min total exposure time as 100x 30sec subs at ISO 2000.



Stars are a bit squiffy at the top right so something obviously needs fixing

Larger version here:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2016/lagoon_trifid_06082016.jpg

Enjoy!

Mark

[Carole]

Wow, that's an even bigger FOV than I got down at Ollys with his Atik1100 &  Takahashi FSQ106N - and yours shows more detail.  Mine were 600sec subs and yours are only 30sec subs. 

That's one amazing camera the Sony A7S, and I see Peter Shah is starting to use this camera too.

Carole

[MarkS]

Wow, that's an even bigger FOV than I got down at Ollys with his Atik1100 &  Takahashi FSQ106N - and yours shows more detail.  Mine were 600sec subs and yours are only 30sec subs. 

That's one amazing camera the Sony A7S, and I see Peter Shah is starting to use this camera too.

Carole

Yes, it's a very interesting comparison with yours: http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=9223

I've got a slightly larger field of view.  My total integration time is 50min whilst yours is 270min.  I don't need long subs because the sensor read noise is so low.  However the wider aperture (180mm vs 106mm) of the Tak Epsilon means I am collecting 2.6x as much light (once my central obstruction is taken into account).

The QE (quantum efficiency) of the A7S is estimated as 65% whereas the KAF-11000 is 50%.  The Sony certainly seems to be giving cooled mono CCD a run for its money!   I always thought it would.

I'm sure Olly's sky is much darker - mine was giving an SQM reading of 20.8-20.9 that night.

Mark

[JohnP]

That's pretty darn impressive Mark for such short acquisition. Out of interest do you know what causes the brightness down LHS - I presume another astronomical object near by - also evident in Carole's image.

Top marks though - John

[Fay]

Great picture Mark, such an interesting area

Fay