This is the Elephants Trunk Nebula. I decided I wanted to make an attempt at getting this nebula before it disappeard over the horizon for this year. I’ve tried this before (see below) without much luck so I thought I’d try it again. I was somewhat lucky in that the evening was amazingly clear with fantastic seeing. I was able to maintain 0.5” guiding on an Az-GTI for hours on end which is nothing short of miraculous. Most of the data that I got here was taken with 10min subs. I’m quite happy with the results although I’m not sure I’ve got the most of this data yet, so perhaps expect a reprocess at some point.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, sv220 narrowband filter, Risingcam IMX585, guided, 5hrs of data

This is the California Nebula. It’s a massive emission nebula in the constellation of Perseus. I gathered this data on a clear night with almost an entire full moon. The data I acquired on this was almost entirely Ha data and the OIII was virtually non-existant so I didn’t even bother to add it to the final image, hence the reason it’s so red. Anyway, I think it looks ok for a first attempt.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, sv220 narrowband filter, Risingcam IMX585, guided, 4hr 25min of data

At the end of the first clear night I had for weeks, I managed to image Orion Nebula for the first time this year. In total, I managed to get about an hour and three quarters of broadband data using 10 second and 30 second subs. I intend to get many more hours on this target over the winter in both broadband and narrowband so expect to see this appear here more often. For now, here’s the first cut

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, IRCut filter, Risingcam IMX585, guided, 1hr 45mins of data

It’s been cloudy here in UK for weeks so I was lucky enough to get two clear nights in a row. I managed to get ~9.5hrs of data on Soul Nebula using my narrow band filter and 1hr RGB data with just a IR Cut filter. I’ve never imaged this target before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It looks like this nebula puts out mostly Ha which makes it appear very red. This was also the first time I’ve mixed RGB and narrowband data in the same image so I’m still perfecting my technique for doing this. I did noticed that the RGB data reduced the dark noise dramatically and made the stars look very much better.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony SV220 filter, Risingcam IMX585, guided, 10.5hrs of data

I noticed a target appear at the bottom of my garden that I’ve never seen before. It’s the Monkey Head Nebula. It was quite an easy target so I caught a few hours on it for several nights until I gathered enough to give a clean image. I ended up combining narrowband data with RGB data taken with only an IR filter for this image. This improves both the star quality and the background noise massively.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony SV220 filter, Risingcam IMX585, guided, over 4hrs of data