Imaging Projects
In this blog, I will share the results of all of my imaging projects. The newest will be at the top and the oldest will be further down the stack. Going back in time here is interesting - some of my early stuff was pretty rough - but I did not see it that way at the time - I was thrilled to get anything back that looked like an image! Hopefully, you will see how my work has progressed with time!
Messier 57 - A Reprocess of The Ring Nebula - 14.7 hours in LHaRGB!
Messier 57, the Ring Nebula has long been a visual favorite of mine. This was a reprocess of data that was collected in 2022. Based on 14.7 hours of HaLRGB, this data showed the rarely seen outer shell. I wanted to see if I could improve on that image with advanced tools and techniques. Since the original image was published, I created a new imaging project for posting to contain both the old and the new versions in the collection.
Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula - 14.7 hours in LHaRGB - Capturing the Outer Ring!
Messier 57, the Ring Nebula has long been a visual favorite of mine. It is also a target that I have shot two times before with poor results due to its small size. This time I wanted to try to do the best job I could, given the limitations of my current gear. I also wanted to get a really long integration. Finally, I wanted to add Ha data in an attempt to capture the red outer gas rings that are not seen visually and often not seen in the typical amateur images. While I ran into problems on the way, did pretty well in meeting my goals. See the full post for the entire story!
NGC 2359 - Thor’s Helmet in SHO ~only 2.5 hours!
NGC 2359 - Thor’s Helmet - is my first image of 2022. This image is the result of 2.5 hours of narrowband data - limited by weather and the fact that this target is very low in the sky for me and access is very limited each night due to trees on my property. I had hoped to gather more data but at this point, it is now too late in the year. So my challenge was to see what I could do with such limited data. detailed processing strategy and log provided!
NGC 7293, The Helix Nebula ~4.5 hours of LHaRGB: Dealing with “Bad Data”
This was my second attempt to capture NGC 7293 - the Helix Nebula - located in the constellation of Aquarius. This time I had high expectations as I was using longer integration times, a longer focal length scope, and a new generation ASI2600MMPro camera. However - LOTS of things went wrong with this capture and its data came out pretty compromised! Some intense image processing minimized the impact of these problems - but the final image falls far short of my expectations. A good example of what can go wrong!