August 28, 2021

Crescent Close-Up (NGC 6888) (August 2021)

 

I love using my CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain.  Here is an image taken (at f/8.1, 2350mm) of the brighter half of the Crescent Nebula in Cygnus.  This is a full narrowband image.  I took three hours of H-alpha then spent a night on what I thought was O3 but which turned out to be S2---ouch (slip of the brain when controlling the filter wheel)!  The S2 is blended in here.  I finally caught another 3 hours of O3.  Total time: 8 hours 50 minutes.  The H-a and S2 subs were 20 minutes long; the O3's were 30 minutes each.

After I finished the O3 subs and the Crescent slipped behind the trees, I put a diagonal and eyepiece in the big scope and enjoyed a tour of Cygnus.  Highlights included the Owl Nebula and Phi And (0.5" clean split; truly awesome to see those little diffraction patterns so close together).  As always, the scope performed like a champ.  I started observing at 3:30 a.m. and made myself put it away at 5.  I had to sleep sometime.

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