Jellyfish Nebula IC443 ****updated****

Finally clear skies, so I made an effort to capture narrowband with my CCD camera. I had captured Ha with it before and was very happy with the results. This is my first attempt at the Hubble Space Telescope Palette (HST) since I got the QHY9M CCD

Image taken with an Orion ED102T CF & QHY9M mono CCD. Baader Ha,OIII,SII 36mm filters
Taken over 2 nights 3/9/13 & 3/10/13

Ha- 3x1200sec mapped to Green
OIII-7x1200sec mapped to Blue
SII-5x1200sec mapped to Red

Guided with Orion SSAG,PhD & 50mm Orion Mini-Guider
Acquired with Nebulosity 2. Dark frames subtracted and DDP applied to each channel
Post-Processed in Photoshop CS6

 

I am happy with my CCD Narrowband result, but I may add more subs and try LRGB on this target, perhaps a wider FOV with the new AT65EDQ (see below)

 

Some brief info on IC443:

The Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443) is located in the constellation of Gemini. It is a supernova remnant that astronomers believe occured 3,000-30,000 years ago and it is @ 5,000 light-years away

 

 

This is a crop of the "core" area. It has been cropped over 50%. I'm very happy with the details the CCD & ED102 capture.

 

I recently got a smaller telescope (65mm) for a wider field of view.
First light with the AT65EDQ:

IC443 LRGB+Ha  3x600/each for a total of 2.5 hours

My next project, weather permiting, will be a mosaic of this region. I found an older image of Messier 35  I took with my Canon T3i and 80mm refractor. It happens to lie with a few degrees of the Jellyfish Nebula  IC443. I overlayed the older image(M35) with the new IC443 image

I'm hoping to do a 4 frame mosaic, LRGB+Ha. Nothing crazy like my Orion Mosaic project.

 

As always comments are always welcome!

 

Before & After Part#2

Finished up 2 of my "projects" NGC 2264 & the Leo Triplet. They can be seen below in chapter 2 of before & after:

M42 The Orion Nebula

 

The image on the left was taken with a Canon T3i, 5 exposures 2 minutes each on December 21,2011

The image on the right was taken with QHY9M CCD & Orion ED102CF refractor 10/21/2012,10/22/2012, 11/10/2012 & 11/18/2012

R-3x10min 1x20min
G-3x10min 4x20min
B-3x10min 4x20min

The image on the right won AstronomyForum.net's 4th Quarter DSO

 

NGC 2264 The Cone Nebula

 

The image on the left was taken December 2011 with an 8" Meade SCT LX-50 and a Canon T3i camera . (1 h 21 minutes of exposures in 21 sub frames)

The image on the right was taken March 4,2013 with a QHY9M CCD camera through an Orion ED102T CF refractor. (3 hours 10 minutes in 15 sub exposures) 
 

The Cone Nebula is probably one of the most dramatic before & afters. A modified camera is almost a must for this deep sky object.

M65,M66 and NGC 3628 The Leo Triplet

The image on the left was taken a Canon T3i (7x120 4x300 iso 400) & a Canon T3 (11x600 iso 400)

with a Meade 8" LX-50 SCT on March 18,2012

The image on the right was taken with a QHY9M CCD & an Orion ED102T CF

10x10  minutes Luminance

6x10 minutes Red

6x10 minutes Green

6x10 minutes Blue

3x20 minutes Hydrogen-Alpha.

The SCT telescope used on the left image has an aperature of 203mm. The ED102T is of course 102mm. Despite being 1/2 the aperature the triplet glass of the ED102T captures much more detail and has much sharper stars. Guiding with the 102 is also less demanding.