Hello all,
I started down this wild, wooly and fantastic journey of imaging DSO's with CCD's almost ten years ago. In all those years, I had never imaged the Pleiades. Why? I was following a rule of thumb from back then that I believe is still a standing recommendation by CCD manufacturers (unless that recommendation has been updated since): use NABG cameras for imaging in light-polluted sites, ABG for dark skies. As I was imaging from our back yard, I picked NABG over ABG cameras. And I was never daring enough to fight the massive blooms that shooting the Pleiades would incur.
That finally changed two years ago when I bought an STL-11000 from a friend. I didn't get much of a chance to use it though, as I was focused on imaging at our remote site, which had our NABG camera. I finally moved the STL-11K down to our remote site a few months ago, and bolted it onto our FSQ-106. This image represents the first light taken with this combination at our dark site.
This was shot late in the season as I only got the equipment configured last month (February), so it's a little past the peak of this target. But I had to shoot something that represents the "why buy an ABG camera" all too well. My imaging time was shorter than I would like, so I'm pretty delighted with what I was able to pull out anyway given the relatively short (for me!) total exposure time.
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Clusters/M45.html
Questions, comments and suggestions always welcome.
Thanks,
Eric
I started down this wild, wooly and fantastic journey of imaging DSO's with CCD's almost ten years ago. In all those years, I had never imaged the Pleiades. Why? I was following a rule of thumb from back then that I believe is still a standing recommendation by CCD manufacturers (unless that recommendation has been updated since): use NABG cameras for imaging in light-polluted sites, ABG for dark skies. As I was imaging from our back yard, I picked NABG over ABG cameras. And I was never daring enough to fight the massive blooms that shooting the Pleiades would incur.
That finally changed two years ago when I bought an STL-11000 from a friend. I didn't get much of a chance to use it though, as I was focused on imaging at our remote site, which had our NABG camera. I finally moved the STL-11K down to our remote site a few months ago, and bolted it onto our FSQ-106. This image represents the first light taken with this combination at our dark site.
This was shot late in the season as I only got the equipment configured last month (February), so it's a little past the peak of this target. But I had to shoot something that represents the "why buy an ABG camera" all too well. My imaging time was shorter than I would like, so I'm pretty delighted with what I was able to pull out anyway given the relatively short (for me!) total exposure time.
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Clusters/M45.html
Questions, comments and suggestions always welcome.
Thanks,
Eric
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