Nebulae
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The Horsehead Nebula - Quick 35 minute test
First serious test of the new 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian after I got everything fine tuned: A quick shot of the famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
Please note that this is straight out of the camera, no processing was done apart from a simple curve stretch to reveal the dynamic range.
This was taken in between clouds on a humid night with rather poor seeing and so I only managed 35 minutes of data.
I used a new coma corrector, the Baader MPCC MkIII. It seems to be very efficient at removing coma in the image; Stars are round and sharp across the frame from edge to edge.
I also installed the Ovision worm upgrade kit for the Losmandy G-11 mount, and as a result there is no star trailing in R.A. The performance of the mount is much improved, way better than I expected.
Image details:
Date: 7th December 2013
Exposure: Luminance 35 mins @ -25C
Telescope: 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand
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