Astrophoto: Elephant’s Trunk Nebula – Sh2-131 – 09/21

The Clear Sky Astro-Shooting

Astrophoto IC 1396A Elephant’s Trunk Nebula Clear Skies 20-22.
From september the 3rd to september the 5th there was very nice clear skies after a summer full of clouds. 3 days i did a single object. This time an emission nebula.

Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

A really pretty object. With my 600mm focal length and the APS-C chip it is really nice to capture. But it is even nicer with a shorter focal length.

Here the high resolution version of the astrophoto on Flickr:

Same data – advanced processing

Lessons Learned

This picture is the first one, i did with “full equipment”. Beside the Vixen ed80sf on my HEQ-5 i used the Flattener (not perfectly configured yet), the 1:10 Lacerta micro focuser.

And i used my new Optolong L-Extreme the first time in my ZWO Filter Changer. A question i have to ask myself is, if it is the best idea to use a duo-narrowband filter on a f7.5 telescope with a camera where i am forced to expose at a maximum of 180s.

Due to the fact of using the narrowband filter and being limited to 180s exposures, i used ISO 1600. As a result i had bright edges aafter stacking the frames. Possibly this is some camera glow i need to take care of in future. possibly i ll go for ISO 800 next time.

Technical overview of Astrophoto IC 1396A Elephant’s Trunk Nebula Clear Skies 20-22

Telescope	VIXEN ED80sf
Focal Length	600mm
Aperture ratio	7.5
Erecting Lense	TSFlat2
Filter	Optolong L-Extreme
Mount	Skywatcher HEQ-5
Goto-Control	EKOS
Mount Control	INDI
Guiding Scope Focal Length	162 mm
Guiding Camera Chip	4.8mm x 3.6mm, 8bit
Guiding Camera Resolution	1280×960
Guiding Software	EKOS, INDI
Dithering	3 pixel
Camera	CANON EOS M100(a)
Method	focal projection
Camera angle
Camera Control	EKOS, INDI, Gphoto2
Photography Date	3.9.2021, 4.9.2021, 5.9.2021
Moon	–
Exposure-Time Lights	145x180s
Sensitivity	ISO 1600
Calibrationframes	Flats, Bias, Darks
Processing Date	10.09.2021
Reprocessing Date	01/06/2024
Stacking, Integration	Deep Sky Stacker
Processing Software	Affinity Photo and SiriL
Image Editing	Affinity Photo
Reprocessing Software	PixInsight
Capture Place	Koblenz, Germany
Lightpollution	Bortle 5
Scattered light	strong