Pillars and Triffid

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Shot from a Bortle 6 sky, two basic "Planetary" cameras were used for these images. Connected to an Esprit100 OTA, the Zwo asi120mms and Zwo asi224mc took it in turn to be the guiding cameras as well.

Because the sensors on these cameras are so small, they crop tight on objects and leave little room for play. A 7nm Ha filter was used on M16 with the 120mms and guided with the 224mc for 25 x 120secs. An IR Cut filter was then used on the 224mc and guided with the 120mms for 20 x 120secs. I used the Ha I shot for M16 as a luminance layer with the 224mc data I captured. There was a bit of up scaling and rotation required to make them fit. That's 90 mins of total integration for M16.

For M20, on another night I left the set up the same and shot 25 x 60sec subs, to produce a colour shot with the 224mc of only 25mins integration.

Sure they're noisy but for all you beginners out there who have reasonable processing skills, it is possible to capture Deep Sky objects with cheaper planetary cameras.

By the way I also shot Darks and Flats, pretty much a no brainer for these cameras with a limited amount of sub exposures. They were also processed using DSS, STs and PS.

[Rusty2]

Pretty good shots for 1.2 megapixel cameras !

Would longer exposures reduce the noise ?

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Rusty2

Pretty good shots for 1.2 megapixel cameras !

Would longer exposures reduce the noise ?

Thanks for your feedback but no, just more of them. This really started out to be a SHO palette experiment on the Pillars using the 120mms but recent cloudy weather has put it on hold. Might have to complete it next year as M16 is heading too far west now. M20 was just a target I slewed to after shooting M16 with the 224mc but thought for 25mins exposure, it didn't turn out too bad.