Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12 (Brian Boyle)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Vela (Vel) · Contains: HD77046 · HD77433 · HD77453 · NGC 2736 · Pencil Nebula

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Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12

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Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12

My first DSO with my new RC12/WO 0.8x reducer/flattener/CQ350 combo.

Wasn't sure what to pick, but I haven't done the Pencil Nebula before. I was pleasantly surprised to see it picked out of the faint [OIII] wisps around the main nebula. The dichotomy between the Ha and [OIII] emission is also striking across the field.

Overall everything went well with the commissioning, the RC12 was straightforward to collimate and - so far - has held collimation really well. The CQ350 tracks to around 0.5-0.7 arcsec rms with my 28kg payload - although I really dislike the locking clamps [move to off to lock telescope]. The WO reducer/flattener gives great images over the FF sensor, but appears to suffer from some weird ghosting as it gave tiny halos in [OIII] around a few random stars in the image [which persisted after meridian flip]. Version B shows the image without clonestamping them out. Of course, I could have discovered some stars with [OIII] shells. I suspect not since I don't see them in anyone else's images.

Feedback welcome on this one, as I am still learning how to use this combo.

Original
B
Final
C

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9183065
PixInsight job	C5LR2PQ0XI7O4B0JOXGM8FJYMP5IU494
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h00m08s.966
RA (top/left)	08h57m52s.923
RA (top/right)	09h03m18s.860
RA (bottom/right)	09h02m22s.997
RA (bottom/left)	08h57m01s.287

Dec (center)	-45°58′01″.96
Dec (top/left)	-46°24′15″.49
Dec (top/right)	-46°10′56″.36
Dec (bottom/right)	-45°31′37″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	-45°44′48″.58

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Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12

Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12

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Pencil Nebula: First Light DSO with RC12

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