End of Summer Shakedown

 After a prolonged dry and hot Summer, astronomical darkness has finally returned in sufficient quantity to enable me to get out imaging and get some sleep before going to work the next morning.  My last blog entries came in the form of a 3 part mini series in which I wrote about my new imaging camera, the Altair Hypercam 26c.  Since that series of posts I did find a problem with the camera which became apparent when looking at the data from the first imaging run.  I noticed some anomalies on the flat frames and after some investigation, I noticed some specs of dust and marks on the inside of the glass covering the camera sensor.  After contacting Altair about it to seek advice in it's removal, they invited me to send it back and get it swapped for a new camera.  Hat tip to the folks at Altair, they stuck to their word and I received a brand new camera within a few days of me sending the original one back to them.

And that's where things have stayed all Summer.  Evenings were too light or the weather wasn't playing, so other than attaching the replacement camera to the telescope, I haven't been able to do anything else with it until now.  The first forays into imaging after a number of months of not doing anything inevitably involve some relearning so I don't put a huge a amount of effort into choosing a target and getting a good few hours of data on it.  First things first, does everything still work?  Thankfully, it did.  So, after achieving focus using a bhatinov mask and the Sharpcap software I had a quick look around for a target and notice the constellation of Lyra almost direct overhead.  In Lyra is the planetary nebula designated M57.  It's tiny when looked at through a telescope and although a joy to see visually, is often overlooked by astrophotographers.  In fact, though I have imaged it before, it was a number of years ago, so I thought I would give it another go.  With everything set up, target acquired and guiding working, I left the rig to do it's work for a couple of hours.

Skip on a day or two after collecting the data and it was time for the next challenge.  The processing.  I find I need to be in the right frame of mind to do the processing of my images.  I tend to split the process into two, calibrating and stacking the images first before processing the stacked image after.  Both parts of the process can take quite a while so I'll often do them over the course of a couple of nights.  Fortunately, I have my processing steps well documented, so at least I don't have to relearn how to do that every Winter.

M57 - The Ring Nebula

M57 can be tricky to process at relatively short focal lengths.  It's small, so the only time you really see the detail is when you zoom in and it is also then when the colour of the nebula starts to show.  Only with some delicate processing did I manage to get some colour to show.

That's the first image and the result of the end of Summer shakedown.  I'm no ready to take on the world.  Or should that be the universe?