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.
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.
High resolution on Astrobin:
The annotated image:
Session details
| Telescope | VIXEN ED80sf |
|---|---|
| Corrector | TSFlat2 |
| Effective focal length | 600 mm |
| Camera | Canon EOS M100(a) |
| Filters | Optolong L-Extreme |
| Mount | Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro |
| Guiding equipment | TS-Optics 50 |
| Guiding camera | Omegon 1200b |
| Date of capture | 3 September 2021 4 September 2021 5 September 2021 |
| Nights | 3 |
| Exposure (lights) | Ha, OIII: 143 × 180 s |
| Total integration | 7 h 9 min |
| Calibration frames | FLATS, DARKS, BIAS |
| Sensitivity | ISO 1600 |
| Capture setup | Ubuntu, EKOS/INDI |
| Processing | 10 September 2021 — Affinity Photo, SiriL |
| Reprocessing | 6 January 2024 — PixInsight, Affinity Photo |
| Location | Koblenz, Rheinland |
| Focal ratio | f/7,5 |
| Image scale | 1,28 ″/px |
| Field of view | 128,0 × 85,3 ′ |
