At my City suburban location I have a restricted view of the SE to SW due to my 2 storey roof line and huge council tree , therefore I can only capture a few hours or so on this target each night.
The weather over the past month has been cloudy but last week offered 2 relatively clear nights ( some passing cloud around 11.30pm to midnight)
I was lucky enough to capture around 4 hours on the Tarantula over 2 nights although I discarded about 15 subs due to cloud and a huge tree in which one smaller branch just blocks its path.
New Moon period
Bortle 8 heavy light polluted skies
Sky conditions were generally clear with late passing cloud
Atmospheric conditions quite stable
8” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newtonian ( built it myself )
Skywatcher EQ6-R pro mount
ZWO2600MM. Cooled to -10C , Offset 50 , Gain 100 ( HCG )
ZWO 7x2 Filter wheel
TS GPU coma corrector
Antlia 2” SHO 3nm filters
Goto and Nav EQMOD and Stellarium
Acquisition APT
PHD2 Multistar Guiding ( 0.45 to 0.55 arc sec )
Ha 52 x 2 min subs
Oiii 35 x 2 min subs
Sii 37 x 2 min subs
Dithered every sub
Full Calibration Suite
40 x Flats for each filter
40 x Flat Darks for each filter
40 x Darks from my Library
Analysed , reviewed , calibrated, stacked and aligned in ASTAP
Post processed in Startools V1.8 using Compose module and mapped SHO
The 2 min subs through my 3nm filters worked really well for such a short integration of only 4 hours
Very happy with the end result in SHO
Link to Astrobin for full resolution…….,
https://www.astrobin.com/dbv2zz/
Attached reduced file size for ST forum
Thanks for looking
Comments welcome
Martin
NGC2070 Tarantula Nebula (in between the clouds)
NGC2070 Tarantula Nebula (in between the clouds)
- Attachments
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- NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula SHO rev 3.jpeg (440.06 KiB) Viewed 8322 times
Re: NGC2070 Tarantula Nebula (in between the clouds)
That really looks great, Martin!
So much detail at only 4 hours of integration time. Mono and high quality filters really seem to be the way to go in case of such light polluted skies.
Nothing to improve as far as I can see. Unless you want to consider to cut the branch of the council tree ...
Dietmar.

Nothing to improve as far as I can see. Unless you want to consider to cut the branch of the council tree ...

Dietmar.
Re: NGC2070 Tarantula Nebula (in between the clouds)
Thanks Dietmar,
Yes very pleased with this result
Unfortunately the trees branch is up around 25 meters high so not going to climb that high , plus it’s a fine $$$ as it’s a government tree.
I’m just happy to image it as it’s a great region in the LMC
Clear Skies
Martin
Yes very pleased with this result
Unfortunately the trees branch is up around 25 meters high so not going to climb that high , plus it’s a fine $$$ as it’s a government tree.
I’m just happy to image it as it’s a great region in the LMC
Clear Skies
Martin