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.
High-resolution on Astrobin:
The annotated image:
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 |
