Capturing the West Veil Nebula: A New Mount's Debut
I'm absolutely thrilled to share my latest deep-sky capture: the magnificent West Veil Nebula! This image represents a significant milestone for me, as I finally got to put my new Juwei 17 mount to the test. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, the skies finally delivered two perfectly clear nights in a row – a rare treat indeed!
This project allowed me to achieve nearly 4 hours of integration time on a single object, which is a substantial amount for me given my current limitations. My power bank's lifespan and the inability to leave my gear unattended outside my apartment often restrict my imaging sessions. However, the new Juwei 17 mount has been a game-changer. For the first time, guiding actually worked beautifully, stabilizing the tracking and allowing for these longer exposures.
The results have left me in awe. I was genuinely amazed by the strength of the nebulosity revealed in my stacked image. What's even more exciting is that I haven't performed any color correction or modifications to the nebula's natural colors. The only challenge I faced was tackling the image noise, which required a bit of a heavy hand, so I feel it's a tad grainy. Despite that, I'm incredibly proud to say this is my best image yet.
I'm always eager to learn and improve, so please feel free to offer any critiques or suggestions!
Equipment Used:
- Mount: Juwei 17
- Telescope: SV503 102 ED with 0.8x reducer/flattener
- Filter: SV220 duoband filter
- Camera: Nikon D5300 (unmodified)
- Guide Scope: SV165 30mm
- Guide Camera: ASI120mm mini
Acquisition Details:
- Capture Software: NINA and PHD2
- Exposure: 225 x 1-minute filtered exposures for nebulosity, 30 x 20-second broadband exposures for stars
- Calibration Frames: Flats and biases
- Moon Phase: 86-93% illumination
- Sky Conditions: Bortle 6-7
Processing Workflow:
- Stacking: DSS (using Kappa Sigma)
- Background Extraction & Denoising: GraXpert (beta)
- Star Removal & Stretching: Seti Astro Suite (StarNet plugin for star removal, statistical stretch, curves, stretching and integrating broadband stars)
- Final Touches: GIMP (masked out red noise, applied Gaussian blur to background, adjusted curves, cropping)
