Sometimes I Feel Like a Dumbbell. So I Imaged the Dumbbell Nebula.
Even though we’re getting much less wildfire smoke, we still have haze. To top that off, fall is in the air and it has been partly cloudy. Fortunately, the skies cooperated and I was able to get out under the stars Saturday night.
My main goal for the evening was to get guiding working again. But first things first. I was running the Celestron CGX mount with my little C6 Schmidt Cassegrain to do some DSO photography if time allowed. And then it happened.
I couldn’t get the telescope aligned. My familiar alignment stars of summer are no longer in the same positions (go figure!) and have moved behind trees. Three times I tried and failed, so I did a solar system alignment on the moon before it slipped out of sight. At least I could get in the neighborhood.
So I set my sights on a random patch of sky and fired up PHD2 Guiding. It still didn’t work. As the program failed, it suggested that I check cables. Crap, of course. I popped back into the garage and dug out a different ST4 cable, attached it and bam! I was guiding again! I felt like a dumbbell.
My dad was a TV repairman back in the late 1950's and early 1960's. He once told me the first thing he checked during a house call was to see if the TV was plugged in. Sometimes, the simplest thing is the cause of your problem.
By now it was getting cool, so I moved into my corner office and fired up a remote session into the laptop. I decided to check out the Dumbbell Nebula since it seemed appropriate. But when I slewed the mount, I didn’t see it. I was lost due to lousy alignment.
Then I remembered that I could plate solve to figure out where I was pointed. I took a screenshot of the camera view and uploaded it to Astrometry.net. Once it told me where I was, I knew how to get to my destination.
PHD2 Guiding is working and I’m imaging… finally!
Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula (A.K.A. Apple Core Nebula) is a so-called planetary nebula that’s 1360 light years away. It can be seen easily with binoculars. The moon had set and I was collecting data by midnight. After the first couple of images, I could see the colors begin to pop out.
M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. Camera: ZSO ASI178MC-Cool with STC Astro-Multispectra Light Pollution Filter. 60 Minute Total Exposure (20 3-Minute Subs, Stacked).
I took 20 3-minute subs, then spent another half hour getting dark frames. Deep Sky Stacker worked it’s magic, then I post-processed in Adobe Photoshop with the aid of Annie’s Astro Actions.
This is my best DSO image of not only this season, but ever. My focus was spot on and guiding worked great. Each successful night pushes me to get out there again. This one has me over the moon!