SKYWATCHER AUSTRALIA
The Swan Nebula - also known as Messier 17 or M17 - is located in the constellation of Sagittarius and well placed for observation by Australian and New Zealand astronomers in our winter months.
The M17 nebula is bright with newly formed stars that light up surrounding clouds of gas and dust which make up most of the "Instellar Medium" (ISM) from which they're formed. As stars migrate away from these exhausted clouds of ISM and drift away, M17 will darken over time. Our own Sun would have formed in such a region before drifting away from other stars developing in the same region.
Vijay Ladva posted to the Sky-Watcher Australia Facebook group his image of M17 taken from his home in Mildura Victoria using his Sky-Watcher Esprit 100ED mounted on a Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 mount. The camera was a ZWO ASI1600MC and processing in PixInsight. The AZ-EQ6 sits on permanent pier and this avoids the need to set up each observing night.
Thanks for sharing these Vijay!
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Great comments on using a Sky-Watcher Esprit for astrophotography.
Looking forward to seeing more of Ivan's work!A few weeks ago, Ivan picked up his new Sky-Watcher Esprit 100 and a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R go-to mount. The Esprit is an awesome scope – a triplet refractor, especially designed for imaging. The EQ6-R is a heavy-duty belt-driven computerised equatorial mount. Together they make an instrument capable of very high precision astrophotography.
After a few weeks of testing and getting to know the equipment, he started producing images. This one is the Lagoon Nebula, and was his first image with the new equipment.
The photo was taken with his Canon 5D MKII DSLR. The camera attaches to the scope with the field flattener and a Canon adapter. The flattener ensures that the focus is sharp across the whole of the field. Without one, the stars at the edges get a bit fuzzy.
To get this image, Ivan took 20 two-minute photos at ISO 3200. He gave the images to a free program called Deep Sky Stacker, which combined these into one high quality image. This quality means he can process it further in Photoshop without the image degrading.
Ivan also got a shot of the Trifid Nebula (and one with both the Lagoon and the Trifid) and the Carina Nebula. I like the Trifid, but Ivan says that he preferred this image because it was the scope’s first light.
Ivan tells me that he isn’t using the hand controller for the EQ6-R at all. Instead he’s got a Wi-Fi dongle working with his iPad. The iPad battery lasts all night, and he likes the app. The stars it selects for alignment are more intuitive, he says. The first one it chose was Jupiter. Easy!
Ivan says that he was pleased at how quickly he was able to come to grips with the new equipment and techniques. He made a lot of use of YouTube tutorials.
Next, Ivan is going to start autoguiding the mount so he can get longer exposures for dimmer dark sky objects. He already has the equipment he needs. He’s also picked up a light pollution filter, so is looking at imaging from inner city Melbourne.
Great start, Ivan, but you're setting a high bar!
Jupiter and Saturn are both still on show high in the night sky.
John McLennan posted his image of Jupiter to the Sky-Watcher Australia Facebook group.
He used a Sky-Watcher 200mm (8") reflector on a Sky-Watcher EQ6 Pro mount. Camera was a ZWO ASI290 mono. Captured using Firecapture. Processing by PIPP, WinJPOS and AutoStakkert!
Thanks for the share David!
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Next in our weekly interview series, Sky-Watcher family member and astrophotographer, Duncan Milburn, shows us his Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount in equatorial mode.
Another magnificent image by Ricky Goodyear that he posted to the Sky-Watcher Australia Facebook group: NGC6188 - Fighting Dragons of Ara.
This is a popular object for astrophotographers this time of the year and Ricky's effort is one of the better ones you'll see!
A total of 23.03hrs image capture.
Telescope was the Sky-Watcher ED80 Black Diamond fitted with the 0.85x focal reducer/flattener.
Guiding done using the Sky-Watcher Evoguide 50ED.
Mounted on a Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro.
Thanks Ricky!
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#astro #astrophotography #neq6pro #ed80 #deepskyobject #nighsky #fightingdragon #ncg6188 #universetoday #universe #telescope
Counterweight for EQ3