M97 The Owl Nebula

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Menno555
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M97 The Owl Nebula

#1

Post by Menno555 »

M97 The Owl Nebula

First time with 90 seconds exposures. Again unguided and I think that’s is the real limit with my small FOV: stars are not round anymore. But real glad with this capture! 😊
Also with 90 seconds starting to see the effect of Bortle 8. Going to look for a good light pollution filter, see if that helps a bit.
Also understanding more and more about capturing. Learning great deal about the histogram and white balance. With this capture I did not alter any colors in processing, only saturation.

Equipment:
Ioptron CEM25EC mount (unguided)
Meade LX65 8” f/10 ACF OTA
Optec Lepus Standard 0.62x focal reducer
Baader IR/UV Cut filter
Zwo ASI385MC camera

Capture with SharpCap: 70 x 90 seconds exposures. Gain 190 (of 600). 100 flats, 10 darks. Manual white balance: 60 Red, 99 Blue. Brightness 20.
Stacked with DeepSkyStacker.
Processed in PS: Levels and Curves. Exposure and Gamma Correction. Saturation. Noise Reduction with sharpened details. Image size reduction.

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turfpit
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Re: M97 The Owl Nebula

#2

Post by turfpit »

Turned out OK as this is not the easiest of objects to capture. The Bortle 8 doesn't help. If you look at my earliest images https://www.astrobin.com/users/turfpit/ with a Celestron C8 you will see I hit the same problems (compounded with lack of experience). The C8 now gets used for lunar/planetary. A small refractor enabled me to progress.

Dave
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Menno555
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Re: M97 The Owl Nebula

#3

Post by Menno555 »

Nice start you had :)
For me it is all of the fun. I know I have not the real right equipment for it but that will not stop me. Learning, experimenting, having fun and (above all) being in awe of all that stuff up there. Only now I am starting to research a bit and getting mind blown away. Like the other day I did capture M81 and only after that, I did research it:it is at 12.000.000 light-years distance and 250.000.000.000 stars in there! :o

And the learning: I learned with M97 that it has a double globe form and also that there are small, faint galaxies in the background.
So I processed it from scratch and this time no focusing on as less as possible noise and on a dark background but on those details. So this is way more noisy but much more is visible.
I will visit it for sure more and then with 300 exposures of around 40 seconds. The shorter time will be better here in Bortle 8. That is also visible now: on the left it is way lighter which is caused by factories far away. Plus maybe a bit better flats ;)

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