I had some great viewing of Cygnus this summer and was able to take an assortment of nebula shots that I am pretty happy with overall. The Crescent Nebula was a bit of an experimental shot for me, I really had no idea how it was going to turn out in my field of view. I wound up taking two shots about a month apart. The first one in mid-July I took a handful of light frames while just scouting around Cygnus and was pretty intrigued by the result, though the star field obscuring the nebula was pretty intense.
After spending a decent amount of time in PixInsight trying various ways to reduce the stars and bring out the nebula, I realized my best bet was to just go back out and re-image it using my Optolong L-Enhance narrowband filter, which did a fantastic job of reducing most of the light from the stars and allowing the nebula and surrounding gasses to really come through.
| Target | Cescent Nebula (NGC 6888) |
|---|---|
| Telescope | ED102 Triplet Refractor |
| Focal Length | ~700mm (after field reducer/flattener) |
| Camera | QHY268C |
| Light Frames | 72 * 300s (filtered), 15 * 300s (unfiltered) |
Crescent Nebula (Filtered), August 2021 - Full Size
Crescent Nebula (Unfiltered), July 2021 - Full Size
