Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Vela (Vel)  ·  Contains:  Extremely wide field
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Vela Starfield - Dark Nebulae and Milky Way around Gum Nebula, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
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Vela Starfield - Dark Nebulae and Milky Way around Gum Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Vela Starfield - Dark Nebulae and Milky Way around Gum Nebula, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
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Vela Starfield - Dark Nebulae and Milky Way around Gum Nebula

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Description

This is the result of a mistake. Period. While shooting this region in my last imaging session, I thought I had the lens framed correctly. However, without plate solving and not knowing this region of the sky very much, my camera was pointed about 10º off my target. Originally planned to be a beautiful H-aplha rich field of Vela SNR's/Gum Nebula, this is just a starfield. Absolutely no nebulosity in this region! 90 minutes of wrong data, almost too deep for such a starfield(!) - not, however, useless data - one more thing learned: *always* recheck framing =D !!

Despite being framed incorrectly, that night was a real milestone in my astrophotographic journey: My first autoguided night. After ~2h fiddling with little tweaks both on hardware and on software, I did it! Used PHD2+ASI120MM+50mm Guidescope, and was able to get 4 minutes exposures at 200mm, with very little trailing! About 2" RMS error, far from perfect, but nice as my 1st results. I have yet to process the 200mm data, but I'm eager to do so.

*Please check the full image 1800px - resized from original)*

Constructive criticism, comments and suggestions are more than welcome in the comments section. Thank's for taking your time to look at this image.

Taken from Rural Skies (Bortle 3-4; NELM ~6.2; SQM ~21.5*calculated), from Cristina, MG, Brazil (22ºS latitude).

Date and Time: April 1st, 2017, at 22h (UTC-3, start of capture)

Camera: Unmodded Canon T5/1200D, at ISO 800

Lens: Nikon Nikkor AI 105mm f/2.5, operated at f/4.0

Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5, tracking, guided (!)

Guiding: Starguider 50mm Guidescope + ASI120mm + PHD2; ~2" RMS

Exposure Detail: 22x240s (total 88min)

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