Soul Nebula up close

WO FLT132 with FFIV reducer. QSI683 with Astrodon filters. 51 hours exposure total

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Beautiful image Buzz. Which bandwidth filters?

BobT

Ha 5 nm, O3/S2 3 nm.

Just wow !!! - and 51 hours. I can’t stay focused on one target that long (mentally). :wink:
I think mine are all 3nm.
51 hours! I don’t think I have that many hours of clear skies in a year!
Here’s my latest - Soul’s neighbor. Heart of the heart. I think I have under 20 hours.
I like the muddy one, but I over pushed a version too. (some people prefer).

Larger muddy vers. (a bit larger) It probably should be finalized somewhere between the two versions. 6" refractor, astrodon 3nm, 1600mmc, mach1. (OAG)

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Nice subtle colouring. I did the same subject last month with my RCT for about 40 hours. I have to go that long to overcome light pollution.

I don’t understand what you mean by this statement. Light pollution is going to be a given percentage of your target brightness no mater how long you expose. I can see doing a longer exposure to try to get near saturation on the brightest parts of the image and to improve dynamic range but I don’t see how that helps reduce sky glow.

Along with the light pollution is shot noise. I have to stretch the faint signals considerably and more exposure means I can do that without heavy handed noise reduction. I had full moon during this period.

Understood, so you are not “overcoming light pollution” with longer exposures.

I am overcoming the shot noise associated with the light pollution, so, yes, I am overcoming light pollution with more exposure.

Not to quibble, but the light pollution is a given percentage of the target brightness and increasing the exposure does not change that. Light pollution is a common problem and I don’t want people to think that the light pollution itself is being reduced by a longer exposure. No disagreement that a longer exposure is good for lower noise and better image depth.

And dynamic range :wink: