Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  CXO J17583+6639  ·  Cat's Eye Nebula  ·  IC 4677  ·  MQ J175745.43+664111.4  ·  MQ J175801.92+663547.3  ·  MQ J175804.91+663857.1  ·  MQ J175806.53+663934.3  ·  MQ J175806.66+663929.8  ·  MQ J175810.25+663905.1  ·  MQ J175920.97+664048.2  ·  MQ J175947.60+664014.5  ·  MQ J175952.07+663806.7  ·  MQ J180009.98+664200.5  ·  NGC 6543  ·  NGC 6552  ·  PGC 2688666  ·  PGC 2689421  ·  PK096+29.1  ·  RX J17591+6635  ·  RX J17594+6638
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NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures, Filippo Scopelliti
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NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
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NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures, Filippo Scopelliti
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NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

This is a preliminary result obtained with the very short exposures only, planned for imaging the bright core. Following the precious help and suggestions of my "DSO lucky imaging" mentor Jeffbax Velocicaptor who produced at my opinion the best amateur image of this object, I planned to make a session of very short exposures for the bright core and a further session of longer exposures for the extensions. After the first night in which I captured 8000 x 500 ms frames with my mono camera on 11th June and 5400 x 1 sec with my color camera on 11th July, considering that in my place I am experiencing the worst weather ever, frustrated for this reason I decided to try to process the entire image with the very short exposures only. It was obviously difficult to manage the noise and the lack of signal of the extension. I love this object, visually also, so I will complete the process with the longer exposures session.

Nauris Mirrage Dobson 600mm f3.8
StellarCAT - Nexus DSC
ASI294MM 500 ms x 8000 (66 min) Gain 400 L-pro filter
ASI294MC 1 sec x 5400 (90 min) Gain 360 L filter
Dark x 50
Paracorr type 2
Falcon derotator
SharpCap - SiriL - PixInsight - PhotoShop

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    NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures, Filippo Scopelliti
    Original
  • Final
    NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures, Filippo Scopelliti
    D

D

Description: I have to say that I am quite obsessed with this object so I am happy I had the opportunity to get the acquisitions to complete the previous version I showed some time ago. I had the opportunity to spend a few nights under a very dark sky (SQM 21.6), at about 2000m of altitude with excellent seeing and transparency, ideal conditions.
The object is complex to process because it was not enough to compose an HDR to best represent all its components, the central core, the concentric shells and the faintest extension. I essentially gradually stretched the image, in an incremental manner, masking the areas as they begin to become saturated. This allowed to get the image starting from a single exposure, except for the central core which inevitably requires a separate session.
I am also very happy with the results of the masks that I applied to the support for the secondary to eliminate the spikes, as the guys from Chilescope kindly showed me.
It was very nice to spend those nights because I had never had the opportunity to observe and image with my new instrument in such conditions.
It is amazing how much more signal can be obtained in the absence of light pollution and how much easier it is to process images essentially without gradients.
I hope you like it.

Nauris Mirrage Dobson 600mm f3,8
StellarCAT - Nexus DSC
ASI294MM 500ms x 10.000 - 1sec x 5.000
ASI294MC 1sec x 5400 (90 min)
Dark x 100
Astronomik L2
Paracorr type2
Falcon derotator
SharpCap - SiriL - PixInsight - PhotoShop

I also have to thank my mentor of the short poses Jeffbax Velocicaptor who in my opinion produced the most beautiful amateur image of this object that I have ever seen as I said the other time but above all my wife who makes me play while she takes care of everything 😊.

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NGC6543 - Cat's eye nebula in Short Exposures, Filippo Scopelliti