Caldwell 33 - The Eastern Veil Nebula (NGC6992)

smr

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Joel
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Hi all,

This is my longest astrophotography project to date.

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.

It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant, many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full Moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light years.

Integration:
15 hours, 50 minutes of total exposure time
274 Photos of 3, 4 and 5 minutes.
ISO 200
No Darks (Dithered)
200 Bias Frames
25 Flats Per Session

Equipment:
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 73
Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod
Autoguiding Scope: Starwave 50mm Guidescope
Autoguiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
Camera: Canon 80D (unmodified)

Software:
PHD2 Guiding
Astrophotography Tool
Deepskystacker
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom

Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

I've just started an Astrophotography channel as well so if you want to see the final session on this project you can here...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxMRSwww9-Y
 
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Quite amazing, splendid. Thanks for sharing (y)
 
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How many nights was that over? It's a lovely thing isn't it. It always makes me think of the aurora, with the curtains of varying colour. I'm recently back from the Algarve where I use a 200mm reflector for photography (I don't own an imaging scope) and my 'project' this time was getting as much of the Veil as I could, so this bit, the Witch's Broom and Pickering's Triangle. I haven't done the processing yet. Everything's calibrated and aligned, integration next.
I always feel that you could get more from your images. Seriously, have you considered dedicated astro imaging software like Maxim DL or PixInsight? I know it costs but given what we spend on everything else............... A friend of mine does exactly like you - takes a lot of care over the taking process then uses DSS and Photoshop, and never quite makes the best of what he's captured. The sensor mod is well worth doing, though you do need then to dedicate the camera to astro. A s/h low end body would do the trick. I use a 350D, very long in the tooth now though I've had it from new, but it does the job. I didn't do the mod. The same friend as above did it. The requisite patience gene passed me by ;)
 
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Quite amazing, splendid. Thanks for sharing (y)

Thanks very much Jak.

How many nights was that over? It's a lovely thing isn't it. It always makes me think of the aurora, with the curtains of varying colour. I'm recently back from the Algarve where I use a 200mm reflector for photography (I don't own an imaging scope) and my 'project' this time was getting as much of the Veil as I could, so this bit, the Witch's Broom and Pickering's Triangle. I haven't done the processing yet. Everything's calibrated and aligned, integration next.
I always feel that you could get more from your images. Seriously, have you considered dedicated astro imaging software like Maxim DL or PixInsight? I know it costs but given what we spend on everything else............... A friend of mine does exactly like you - takes a lot of care over the taking process then uses DSS and Photoshop, and never quite makes the best of what he's captured. The sensor mod is well worth doing, though you do need then to dedicate the camera to astro. A s/h low end body would do the trick. I use a 350D, very long in the tooth now though I've had it from new, but it does the job. I didn't do the mod. The same friend as above did it. The requisite patience gene passed me by ;)


Thanks Jan. it was 5 nights. Started imaging in the last week of August and had a couple of clear nights. September was pretty naff for clear skies, when the Moon wasn't about anyway!

I know Pixinsight is dedicated towards astronomical image processing but I've read that it depends on work flow really and I'm quite good with Photoshop now, relatively anyway. Though I may try and learn Pixinsight someday, not sure how much more data I could have stretched out with it though as opposed to what I have.

I'm going to be upgrading to a dedicated astro camera soon.
 
Just re-edited this. Adjusted the black point and brightened the Nebula up, the original rendering looked so dull and drab compared to this one, looks much better now. Much more worthy of all the time and effort capturing those photons!
 
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