3 replies to this topic

[Axel Mellinger]

Even though the Moon was still pretty bright, I took advantage of a few clear nights and photographed the "Elephant's Trunk" in IC 1396. I was able to collect nearly 14 hours of images.

 

Date: August 5-8, 2020
Telescope: Vixen R200SS 8" f/4 Newtonian
Focuser: home-built motorized focuser w/ ESP8266 microcontroller
Mount: EQ6-R Pro
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro, Gain 200, Offset 25
Filters: ZWO Hα, [O-III], [S-II] (7 nm bandwidth)
Guide scope/camera: ZWO 60 mm, f=280 mm with ASI290MM Mini
Telescope/camera control: Ekos 3.4.3, running on a Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB, Ubuntu 20.04). Remote control via VNC.
Exposure: Hα 116×120 s, [O-III] 184×120 s, [S-II] 119×120 s
Color Pallette: SHO
Light Pollution: Bortle 5-6

 

I'm still amazed what narrow-band imaging can do even under moon-lit skies.

 

High-resolution image on Flickr.

Attached Thumbnails

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[descott12]

Beautiful detail and love the colors. Was the gradient from blue to brownish inherent in the data or did you do that somehow. Either way, I really like it.

[sunnyday]

very nice close up ,love the colors , thanks .

[Axel Mellinger]

Beautiful detail and love the colors. Was the gradient from blue to brownish inherent in the data or did you do that somehow. Either way, I really like it.

I know, it looks like a processing artifact, but I verified that it's in the data — the right part of the image has significant [S-II] emission.