Capturing the Western Veil: A Bortle 2 Adventure
Last night, I had the incredible opportunity to venture into a Bortle 2 dark site, and I couldn't resist aiming my telescope at the magnificent Western Veil Nebula. The clarity of the skies was truly remarkable, providing a perfect canvas for this intricate celestial structure.
The Equipment
To capture this stunning view, I utilized the following setup:
- Camera: QHY163c
- Telescope: Apertura EDR 72 with field flattener
- Mount: Skywatcher Wave100i (This was my first night imaging with this mount, and I was thoroughly impressed with its stability!)
- Filters: Optolong L-Extreme
Acquisition Details
Here's a breakdown of the data collected during the imaging session:
- Lights: 59 frames, 360 seconds each
- Darks: 25 frames
- Flats: 50 frames
- Biases: 50 frames
Processing Workflow
Bringing out the details of the Western Veil requires careful processing. My workflow involved:
Siril:
- Stacked and preprocessed the image data.
- Performed background extraction to remove light pollution gradients.
- Applied green noise reduction.
- Utilized GraXpert for advanced denoising.
Affinity Photo:
- Adjusted levels to enhance contrast and bring out faint details.
- Applied final denoising to refine the image.
The Result
Here is the final image of the Western Veil Nebula, a testament to the power of good equipment, dark skies, and meticulous processing:
I'm thrilled with how this turned out, especially considering it was the maiden voyage for the Skywatcher Wave100i mount. The combination of dark skies and this setup allowed for some truly spectacular results. Clear skies and happy imaging!
