Click on image to see full size image:
Object: |
M57 - The Ring Nebula |
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Date(s): |
22 Jun 2013 |
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Location: |
Rancho Hidalgo, NM | |
Telescope: |
LX200 10" at f/10 | |
Mount: |
Meade SuperWedge on pier | |
Camera: |
SBIG ST-11000M | |
Single-Shot Color: |
No | |
Luminance: |
8 5 minute images bin 1 | |
Red: |
8 5 minute images bin 2 | |
Green: |
8 5 minute images bin 2 | |
Blue: |
8 5 minute images bin 2 | |
Comments: |
This was during a super-bright full moon. The ring nebula is bright enough to image reasonably even though the sky is fairly bright. I need to re-shoot this during a new moon to see if more detail emerges. I used successive deconvolution operations to show the internal structure of this planetary nebula. For once, I am happy with how the stars turned out. There were no color rings around the stars that plagued me in the past. Those were caused presumably when R, G, and B images were not equally focused. What helped was that I used FocusMax to refocus whenever the filter changed. In the past, I was trusting my calibration of the TCF-Si focuser to do temperature compensated focusing without involving FocusMax. That seemed smart at the time... I'm still not sure why that is not sufficient. I did a lot of work to determine the temperature versus steps coefficient. It seemed to be linear but there must be some factor I am not taking into account. FocusMax is somewhat complex but pretty amazing. I can recommend it highly. |