M27 the Dumbbell nebula: I took a few shots of M27 late/early this morning. The image below is made from 26 6minute subs with my DSLR set to ISO 800 with a focal length of 4096mm...

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

I took a few shots of M27 late/early this morning. The image below is made from 26 6minute subs with my DSLR set to ISO 800 with a focal length of 4096mm (F10). The seeing was initially very poor but got somewhat better later, the wind was also a bit gusty (4 subs where removed from the 30 taken due to the seeing). The Lack of HA prevented getting some of the nebula (a situation I will be correcting with a used CCD camera and filters I just ordered). All comment, questions and suggestions are welcome.

(Download)

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Ballard wrote:

I took a few shots of M27 late/early this morning.... (show quote)

Very nice! Turned out really nice!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

JimH123 wrote:

Very nice! Turned out really nice!

Thanks Jim. I was surprised it came out as well as it did with the seeing varying from poor to mediocre.

fjwallace

Nice - especially with only 26 pics! 6 minutes - what do you use for a mount - pretty good tracking. Thanks for sharing!

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Looks great Ballard!
I especially like being able to see through the nebulosity and the stars behind it.

Exceptional imaging!

But wind in Space?
Is that like flatulence in the Space Shuttle?

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

Was this without any filter? The central star is definitely visible and the color in the other stars is nice. I struggle getting star colors. I see nothing I dont like.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

fjwallace wrote:

Nice - especially with only 26 pics! 6 minutes - what do you use for a mount - pretty good tracking. Thanks for sharing!

I have an Astro-Physics 1600GTO mount. Currently I'm using an off-axis guider with a Starlight Express Lodestar X2 inserted in the guider. The Lodestar X2 is connected to my laptop running PHD to pass commands back to the mount for guiding. Normally the RMS will stay under 1/2 arc second, but the other night with the wind and poor seeing it was around 2 arc seconds.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

SonnyE wrote:

Looks great Ballard!
I especially like being able to see through the nebulosity and the stars behind it.

Exceptional imaging!

But wind in Space?
Is that like flatulence in the Space Shuttle?

Hi Sonny
I found that if I tweaked the blue intensity correctly I could get the transparency that I liked to see through the nebulosity. Although there may have been some flatulence going on, the wind outside the other night wasn't me.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

alberio wrote:

Was this without any filter? The central star is definitely visible and the color in the other stars is nice. I struggle getting star colors. I see nothing I dont like.

Hi Alberio
No Filter but I tweaked the blue channel to get some transparency in the nebula without screwing up the star colors to much.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Here is another look at M27 that I took 3 years ago using the Atik 460EX mono sensor camera. I used an Explore Scientific 102ED scope which has a 810mm FL. This was a stack of 10 images of 40 sec each. The 4060EX has a sensor that is 2750 x 2200 pixels. I cropped a bit.

I failed to make note of whether or not I used a filter. But the stars are clearly showing through the nebula.

(Download)

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

JimH123 wrote:

Here is another look at M27 that I took 3 years ago using the Atik 460EX mono sensor camera. I used an Explore Scientific 102ED scope which has a 810mm FL. This was a stack of 10 images of 40 sec each. The 4060EX has a sensor that is 2750 x 2200 pixels. I cropped a bit.

I failed to make note of whether or not I used a filter. But the stars are clearly showing through the nebula.

Hi Jim
I found on my initial processing that parts of the nebula came out a bit bright and obscured some of the detail in the image. Below is the image before I tweaked the image to get more transparency. I find I like the aesthetics of my original post that shifted the color more to blue from the original aqua hue and allowed the stars to be more apparent (just personal preference).

Before tweaking
Before tweaking...

(Download)

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Ballard wrote:

Hi Jim
I found on my initial processing that parts of the nebula came out a bit bright and obscured some of the detail in the image. Below is the image before I tweaked the image to get more transparency. I find I like the aesthetics of my original post that shifted the color more to blue from the original aqua hue and allowed the stars to be more apparent (just personal preference).

Even before tweaking, it is a beautiful image. I like it.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

If you bring both images into a separate tab in you browser, then shift between them you can see how much difference the tweak made. Which one did you prefer?

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Ballard wrote:

If you bring both images into a separate tab in you browser, then shift between them you can see how much difference the tweak made. Which one did you prefer?

I did that and I like the original color better, but I like the stars shining through better on the tweaked image.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

JimH123 wrote:

I did that and I like the original color better, but I like the stars shining through better on the tweaked image.

Hi Jim
The color is more correct with the aqua hue, but to get the transparency without dimming the nebula I found that blue shift did what I wanted. If got a real ccd (used) on order along with LRBG and NB filter sets. I hope to get more of the out layers of these planetary nebula, particularly with HA lines that standout towards the edge from what I have read.
Thanks for your input.