M 16

[Stefan B]

A short peek at M 16 with broadband filter and duo NB data for accenting:

Weather is unusually uncooperative for this time of the year (which was also true for spring...) so I won't add more data here although it definitely needs some more hours for more depth and less noise. But I'd like to move on to Cygnus or Cepheus with the next lunation, so...

Here's an impression from the imaging session so you can see how low that stuff is for me. I also had the dob handy so I did some visual which was almost as much fun as the photography part (don't tell Dylan O'Donnell [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9QYUmANcmE] )

See https://www.astrobin.com/m11gnu/ for details.

CS
Stefan

[fmeireso]

Hi Stefan,

I still think it looks nice though. Pilars of creation are rather well defined.
Personaly i would not try it myself, it sits just too low, and trees are blocking the view from my backyard. And i am never tempted to leavy my backyard for AP so for me it is no go...

CS
Freddy

[Stefan B]

Hi Freddy,

yes, it's pretty low but not as bad as M8/M20. But when there are obstructions there are better targets at this time of the year for sure.

Regards
Stefan

[decay]

Hi Stefan,

lucky you! Such a clear sky featuring the Milky Way all the way down to the horizon!
These are the moments when I have doubts whether AP is the right hobby for my location. For me the Milky Way is only visible near the zenith.

Best regards, Dietmar.

[decay]

This is how it looks like for me ...

2023-07-23 20_28_12-DSCN6599.JPG - IrfanView (Zoom_ 1736 x 1302).jpg (124.08 KiB) Viewed 3447 times

[fmeireso]

But you still can see the teapot Dietmar?

i don't come even close. Not that it matters....so low would be flooded by light pollution by the industrial zone Ghent-Terneuzen...

[Stefan B]

Nice constellation image, Dietmar!

I am definitely lucky with my sky but maybe I should tell you how the milky way image was done. It is a vertorama of three images. Every image is a stack of 10 subs with 10 sec (untracked, tripod only) with a modified DSLR. The stacks were done with Sequator and a medium light pollution removal was done. You can still see the LP cover M8 and then vanish. In reality it get's higher than that.

So it's Bortle 4 but the image might make it appear better than that.

These are the moments when I have doubts whether AP is the right hobby for my location.

It's always a matter of setting expectations, right? I do a bit of motor cycling and am living in a pretty flat terrain and nice routes are an hour away in every direction. A friend of mine lives in Austria with mountains and all that stuff. He told me he would sell the bike if he lived where I do. I still have fun although it's probably not as cool as in Austria. Or it takes more effort to get to similar routes.

In AP it's kind of the same. Question is if you have fun doing it with the possibilites you have. And in AP you can to some extent buy your way out with going full mono and narrowband. Or do mostly duo NB/OSC with more expensive filters... I mean this has been done from Las Vegas (https://www.galactic-hunter.com/post/m1 ... ega-nebula):

Anyway, I hope you don't quit

Regards
Stefan

[decay]

But you still can see the teapot Dietmar?

Yes Freddy, I can see the teapot in that small gap between the trees on the left and on the right side. Direction is pretty exactly south. There’s not too much time, maybe about 1.5 or 2 hours before it passes. The LP dome on the right is caused by a nearby small town about 4 km away, but it is a bit lower than my location. The famous German “Ruhrgebiet” with about 5 million people is located some 10 km north of my location (at least the bigger cities). So regarding the direction of the LP, I'm probably a bit luckier than you?

Nonetheless I think AP is fine from our both locations, just like Stefan wrote. Actually I tried the Lagoon Nebula, too! I will reply to Stefan’s post with some more words later, maybe tomorrow.

Best regards, Dietmar.

[fmeireso]

Me, i think too AP is fine from our locations. However visual astronomy is another story. I did it many many years and there is not much to do against lp if observing visual. With AP at least we have some weapons, like narrowband filters, longer integration times and so...

Regards
Freddy

[decay]

Hi Stefan, I never heard the word ‘vertorama’ before. And I thought this was be a snapshot taken with your smartphone . Usually I’m not that naive . A great image, I too will try to do something like that.

And yes, I still have fun doing AP here at my location. In fact it isn’t too bad, I think. I even managed to get some decent full spectrum images here – at least I think they are quite OK. And I’m sure, I’ll be doing AP for many more years. It’s so fascinating, challenging and I really like it. So I will go on to be a pain in the neck for the folks here on the ST forum .

Since you opened the ‘low declination’ challenge here is my try on the Lagoon Nebula. Ridiculously low at about 14 degrees I guess and only half an hour of light (62 x 30s), because I failed to set up the guiding. Due to excessive PE of my EQ5 I had to discard about 2/3 of all images. The teapot was barely visible on the horizon. Nevertheless I was surprised of the outcome:

m8-1-1.jpg (635.52 KiB) Viewed 3252 times

If I remember correctly, I used FilmDev instead of AutoDev. I have the impression that FilmDev does a better job with such very weak data sets than OptiDev, which I use in almost all cases. I like the stars of the embedded cluster. Being not so small they underline the nature of the cluster in my eyes. I only used SV Decon, but not Shrink.

Best regards, Dietmar.