LBN 720, VdB18 & NGC1342 - Cluster and dust in Perseus from Petts Wood

[Roberto]

Another dusty one; this time mixed with a nice open cluster discovered by William Herschel.   Taken before the full Moon in the early hours.
Acquisition details here:  https://astrob.in/e5tcdz/C/

Roberto



and full resolution version: https://astrob.in/full/e5tcdz/C/?real=&nc=rbotero

[Carole]

Excellent once again Roberto, love the star colours.  Already liked on Astrobin.

Carole

[ApophisAstros]

Ditto what carole said about the stars,
roger

[Roberto]

Thank you Carole, Roger - very kind words.   I was surprised to capture VdB18 (blue reflection nebula below the leftmost blue star in the middle trio) as it is a very faint one.  My aim was to capture as much as possible detail in the dust - which shows better in the luminance frame - but couldn't acquire as many frames as the weather started to deteriorate this week.

Roberto

[Carole]

I was surprised to capture VdB18 (blue reflection nebula below the leftmost blue star in the middle trio)

Roberto you are capturing some very unusual targets, as such we are not familiar with some of the objects and their faintness.

Carole

[Roberto]

Carole

Check the annotated version at the link above (version D); also below - circled in white.  The van den Bergh catalogue has some much more familiar objects but this one is quite faint.
Thanks

Roberto

[Carole]

What I was trying to say, is that our feedback on unusual objects is likely to be suboptimal.

Carole

[MarkS]

Wow, another fantastic image!

How do you pick your targets?  I've never seen most of them.

Your processing skills are very good indeed to bring these faint details out of your light polluted background.  That reflection nebulosity is very subtle.

From a technical point of view I'm interested to know how you take your flats.  They must be very accurate indeed - certainly not T-shirt flats 

Mark

[Roberto]

Mark
Many thanks! I usually browse Astrobin for targets and frame them in NINA before imaging them with Voyager.
Flats are taken using a Lacerta LED flat field box. I aim at 2/3rds full well with my KAF16803 chip.
Thanks again
Roberto

[MarkS]

Flats are taken using a Lacerta LED flat field box. I aim at 2/3rds full well with my KAF16803 chip.

That looks like an excellent flat field box.  My own flats are taken with an opaque white Perspex sheet over the dewshield pointing at a uniform dusk or dawn sky (sun below horizon).  But things are so much easier with one-shot-colour.

Mark

[Roberto]

Mark
And they are not too expensive. I've made my own flat box (10+ years ago), used sky flats, t-shirts, "dark" flats, Alnitak, Neumann, and this one.  This is the simplest and most effective for my imaging refractor.
Also my camera's minimum exposure at 1x1 binning in L is 6s (because of its shutter) so I need a flat with low, stable illumination and the Lacerta seems to fit the bill. I was getting plenty of ghosting with the Gerd Neumann's one for example.
Roberto

[ApophisAstros]

For what its worth my homemade flat box seems to do the trick, its an aurora flat panel housed in a cardboard box.

Roger

[Roberto]

Well done Roger. Mine (2002 vintage) was cardboard with an actual light bulb and a diffusing panel...it worked well for a C9.25 I had at the time.
Roberto

[RobertM]

Another awesome image Roberto with excellent colour and focus across the frame, well done.

Robert

[Roberto]

Thank you very much Robert.