Trifid Nebula

[twilbur]

One of my favorites, but so low for me. Luckily the Tak is a forgiving instrument (as opposed to the LX200)!



Full scale with commentary here:
http://www.conlinhill.com/gallery-nebulae-m20-003.htm

[Jean-Yves]

Hi Ted,

Beautiful image !
Pin point stars, great colors, very well done!
I see in your gallery you already have a very nice lagoon ... you may be short of just a small piece of sky and then you can stich both objects in an amazing poster!

Cheers

Jean-Yves

[ben therrell]

Ted,
       That's a striking image!  Great colors, great tracking and the absorption material is very
well defined.

       I know this one was worth loosing a couple of night's sleep over.  Got to  strike while the
iron is hot (or the tube is cold).

Thanks for posting,

Ben

[Ron]

Ted,

Very nice!

One of the first Nebula's I look at with an O111 filter and was able to see some detail in the dark lanes.

Also one of my Summer favorites.  Is it that time of year again

Ron

[twilbur]

Thanks so much for looking and taking the time to comment Jean-Yves, Ben and Ron. I appreciate your kind comments.
Jean-Yves, you are right, the Trifid and Lagoon are close, perhaps a mosaic would make a good project!

Since Ben mentioned the tracking, I'll pontificate on the subject for a moment. The image scale here is about 3.7 arcsec per pixel. My experience is that at this image scale excellent detail can still be had, and many many many problems introduced by seeing conditions, tracking and guiding issues simply DISAPPEAR. Having an LX200 for a mount is not the most desirable state of affairs, but with PEC and polar alignment highly tuned, it's very capable at this image scale, and you can't beat the price. Imagers on a budget (like me) can get some pretty DSO pictures using an LX200 (or Celestron SCT for that matter) as a mount and long focal length guide scope, imaging with a small apo riding on top. It also really helps to have computerized focus since perfectly sharp focus is key to a good image.

I've run into a few focal length snobs who refer to these images as "under sampled" and don't see the beauty in them. These are always the guys with $5000+ mounts and a ton more money invested in scopes and cameras. I'll concede that a well done long focal length galaxy shot is better than any image I can come up with. But the point remains - people on a budget can do extremely nice DSO work with modest equipment. I submit that the keys to success are getting the image scale into the 3-5 arcsec per pixel range, and having very good focus (I use a Robofocus and it's worth every penny).

[futzman]

Really, really nice twilbur.  I wish I could do half as well at DSO imaging as you do.  Someday maybe!

[twilbur]

Thanks Richard, I think the same thing about planetary imaging when I see your stuff, though I've mostly given up trying at this point...