Altair 26c Makes a Bubble

Looking back over the blog from years gone by, I can see, and now recall, that I have imaged the Bubble Nebula several times on my astrophotography journey.  But this is the first time I have had a go with the Altair 26c and Altair 115 Starwave combo.  There should be no surprise also that I think that this is my best effort yet.  Using the combination of this hardware, and the latest in the techniques and processes I have learnt over the last few weeks, this has come out far better than my previous attempts.

I particularly like the nebulosity around the bubble, but elsewhere in the frame, we also have an area of what I think is OII coming into view.  This only appeared after I added the colour palette during processing.  Also, we can see the cluster M52 very clearly defined.

All together, I brought in around 118 frames of 98 second light frame exposures giving a total of around 3 hours 10 minutes of exposure time.  Some of those frames were rejected because of satellite trails but fortunately, Pixinsight seems to be getting better and better at identifying these anomalies and removing them from the final image.  To add to the light frames, I also used 30 dark frames, 30 flat dark frames and 30 flat frames.

Another one to add to the blog, and I can't wait to get back out again.  But I really should pay attention and go back to my list of 3 targets at the end of my last post!

Unit next time, clear skies 😁