Eagle Nebula

[MarkS]

Eagle Nebula taken the nights of 30 June and 1 July.

Taken with modified Canon 550D on Celestron C11 with TS 0.8 reducer and IDAS LPS-D1 filter.  The best 12 subs (5 minutes each) of 42 were chosen for this stack because guiding problems caused the others to have significiant elongation in R.A.

This is the Red channel only from those 12 subs since the stars in the Green and Blue channels were far more bloated and also didn't line up very well with the Red.  If I had known this in advance I would have used an Ha narrowband filter instead to improve the S/N ratio.

So this image has been well and truly snatched fom the jaws of defeat.



Larger version here:
http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/2014/eagle_red_01072014.jpg

When I get time, I might try to rescue a full colour image fom the data.

Mark

[Carole]

That's very good for just the red channel Mark. 

Carole

[MarkS]

The sky quality was pretty good near the horizon on those two nights and the seeing wasn't bad either.

Mark

[RobertM]

I think that's quite good considering it's only 60 mins on a DSLR.  A narrowband filter would have given you tighter stars and a bit more resolution in the nebula.

Robert

[Mac]

Very nice.

Mac.

[ApophisAstros]

is that "the pillars of creation" ??

[JohnP]

Nice Image Mark What guiding probs you having - I thought now you had your permanent set etc. guiding would be less of an issue?

[Carole]

is that "the pillars of creation" ??

correct, the Eagle shape in the middle.

Carole

[MarkS]

Nice Image Mark What guiding probs you having - I thought now you had your permanent set etc. guiding would be less of an issue?

The thing is that the Eagle is low down in the sky (max 25deg altitude) so the seeing becomes a bigger issue.  I no longer guide in Dec so when the seeing deteriorated the stars elongated more in R.A. than they did in Dec.  The 12 good subs (6 from each night) had guiding errors of around 0.7arcsec RMS in both R.A. and Dec but that deteriorated to around 1.3 arcsec in R.A. and 1.0 in Dec which caused quite obvious egg-shaped stars.

The EQ6 really isn't suited to long focal length imaging at low altitudes even with my belt mod.  I'm eagerly awaiting my 48:12 pulleys so I do proper PEC - I'm hoping that will really help.

Mark