Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

I wanted to try 2x2 binning so I just shot some LRGB frames of the ring nebula. This made for sufficient detail but made the frame sub frame sizes much more manageable (30 meg vs 120 +Meg for 1x1 binning). For this image I ran the camera at -12 C since the outside temperature was in the high 70's all night.
My next step is to selectively add some HA to bring out the out shells of gas not visible in this image. (Hopefully in the next few days).
This image was taken at just over 4000mm at F10 with the 16 inch Meade Schmidt Cassegrain LX200 telescope.
For this image I used the following exposures (the camera gain on the ASI 6200MM pro to 100)
Lum - 48 franes at 2 min each
Red - 24 frames at 4 min each
Green - 24 frames at 4 min each
Blue - 25 frames at 4min each

~8.5 hours of total integration time.


PHD was used with off axis guiding using at MOAG and a Starlight Express X2 CCD guide camera.
SGPro was used for controlling the imaging, focusing, plate solving, control of the mount and controlling PHD.
Pixinsight was used for image processing along with Digital light and color for minor touch up and

I may need to redo my flat frames as there still seems to be some extra brighten in the center of the subs. (This was pretty much masked by not stretching the images at lot). I did add a bit of extra brightening to some of the more distant galaxies in the background which can be easily seen in double download.


All comments suggestions and questions are welcome.

(Download)

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Very nice!

I also notice you captured a few fainter galaxies, one nice one to upper left from M57.

bwa

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi bwa
Thanks for viewing the image of M57 and for the comment. I did selectively brighten some of dimer galaxies. The brightest one is IC 1296 at Magnitude is 14.3. It is estimated to be 235 million light years away. I hope to reprocess this with HA added in soon.

Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England

very, very nice nebula, you may want to keep an eye on the stars when processing as the brighter stars have some halo's appearing

Look forward to seeing the added HA data

Marc

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Marc
Thanks for viewing the ring nebula, for the comment and suggestion. I have just finished taking the HA data and hope to have it processed in a day or two.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Very nice. Very sharp, and good colors. I like.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi JimH123
Thanks for checking out the image of the ring nebula and for the comment.

stepping beyond Loc: usa eastcoast

Ballard , it's a really good start on m57 . I can't wait to view the final , I can start to see some blooming outside the red ring. { Kudos} !

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi stepping beyond
Thanks for checking out the image of M57 and for the comment. I just posted a new version that shows the dim halo around the ring.
See https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-743879-1.html

sadams Loc: Nampa, ID

[
Nice astro photography. You have taken a large leap ahead to achieve such great results. Jusy curious if you have attempted to capture the andromeda galaxy, i'm not sure of its proximity to earth, relative to its size, just curious

thanks for the opportunity to see what one can do.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

[quote=sadams][
Nice astro photography. You have taken a large leap ahead to achieve such great results. Jusy curious if you have attempted to capture the andromeda galaxy, i'm not sure of its proximity to earth, relative to its size, just curious

thanks for the opportunity to see what one can do.[/quote]

Hi sadams
Thanks for checking out the image of the Ring Nebula and for the comment. This image was taken at a 4000mm focal length so with this scope only a small piece of the Andromeda galaxy (known as M31) would show up in the view. The Andromeda galaxy is around 2.5 million light years away and heading for us at around 110 km/sec ( The Milkyway and Andromeda Galaxies will collide in around 5 billion years and form a new elliptical galaxy). Here is the relative size comparison, the ring itself is around 3 arc minutes across, the moon is around 32 arc minutes across while the Andromeda galaxy 189 arc minutes in its longest dimension. However I have taken an image of Andromeda with a 500mm lens.
See
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-711069-1.html
Note to get the same size image of M31 at 4000 mm would take combining at least 64 images. I have used this technique on the moon to get a higher resolution image.
See
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-680013-1.html

Note: just posted reprocessed images of the ring nebula at
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-745762-1.html