This is my first image of the Summer and is really just a quick test of the gadgets I've made/bought over the past few months. As usual, after spending several hours setting up the telescope and imaging bits then waiting for the sky to darken a bit, I only managed 5 minutes photography before the clouds rolled in and the Moon came out to play. The image is a single 30second exposure of M57, but taken through a coma corrector which, at first glance, seems to have done a good job. I've purposefully left the image un-cropped so you can see the stars right at the edge of the field, these would normally look like comets. 6 flats were taken with my new light box, which, when combined in DeepSkyStacker, have produced a nice evenly illuminated field. 2 dark frames were also taken but their effect isn't really visible in the image. The Ring shows slight colouring and, if you zoom in, the central star is just visible. I need more focal length for this object ideally. Equipment used: Skywatcher 8" Newtonian, Skywatcher Coma corrector, Canon EOS550d.
M57 - The Ring Nebula
This is my first image of the Summer and is really just a quick test of the gadgets I've made/bought over the past few months. As usual, after spending several hours setting up the telescope and imaging bits then waiting for the sky to darken a bit, I only managed 5 minutes photography before the clouds rolled in and the Moon came out to play. The image is a single 30second exposure of M57, but taken through a coma corrector which, at first glance, seems to have done a good job. I've purposefully left the image un-cropped so you can see the stars right at the edge of the field, these would normally look like comets. 6 flats were taken with my new light box, which, when combined in DeepSkyStacker, have produced a nice evenly illuminated field. 2 dark frames were also taken but their effect isn't really visible in the image. The Ring shows slight colouring and, if you zoom in, the central star is just visible. I need more focal length for this object ideally. Equipment used: Skywatcher 8" Newtonian, Skywatcher Coma corrector, Canon EOS550d.
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Great effort Tim! The final result is good, but the infrastructure is first class. GradX to help reduce gradients, and you're set for a great dark season. The coma-corrector works very well, and so does the light box.
Try for some nebulosity next door in Cygnus, big areas there to suit your focal length.
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