Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband (Andrew_B)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg) · Contains: IC 5070 · IC 5076 · NGC 6989 · Pelican Nebula · The star 55Cyg · The star 56Cyg · The star 57Cyg

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband, Andrew_B

Powered byPixInsight

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

Powered byPixInsight

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

This image of (almost) the North America and Pelican nebulae in H-alpha was my first ever attempt at narrowband as well as the first long exposure taken with the Zenithstar 61, and was the end result of a recent imaging session best summed up as a catalogue of errors.

I managed to capture 60 one minute subs but the focus is slightly off and it looks like there was a tracking issue. The bigger and more obvious problem is that I missed the North America nebula almost entirely, although I was fortunate to capture enough of the Pelican Nebula to let me see the H-alpha filter in action despite those issues. The experience did at least teach me some important lessons about not biting off more that you can chew by trying to do too many new things at once in challenging conditions and with too little time.

Taking a first long exposure image through a telescope is enough of a challenge without adding narrowband into the mix, and new hardware and methods are best tried out in the comfort of one's own garden rather than out in the field on a freezing cold Yorkshire moor in a gale.

The image is probably better than it deserves to be in the circumstances and I'm happy with the end result even though it's very poor by Astrobin standards. The Baader 7nm H-alpha filter really impressed me with the amount of detail and contrast I could pull out of the data from such a short integration time using an f5.9 scope and a stock X-T100. Even the poor sky quality and the rapidly approaching dawn didn't have as much impact as I would have expected. It's a promising start and I can't wait to see what it can do once I've got the hang of using it properly.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4391694
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

Almost the North America Nebula - first (bad) attempt at narrowband

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information