 |
|
|
| Object | M8- The Lagoon Nebula |
| Info |
M8 Nebula is located in the constellation of Sagittarius and is visible to the naked eye. Encompassed within the nebula, on the eastern side of the dark rift is Ngc 6530, a cluster of about 25 stars of 7th mag. and fainter, formed recently from the surrounding gas. On the other side of the rift is a dominated by two main stars, the brighter of which is the blue- white super giant 9 Sagitarii @ mag. 6. Located approximately 5,200 L.y. away. |
| Date | Ha- 25/5/ Lum-7/ 6/ & RGB data 13/ 6/ 2010 |
| Location | BayTop Observatory- Streaky Bay South Australia |
| Instrument | Home built 10" Newtonian (Bob Royce primary) and an Antares 1/20th wave secondary with MPCC coma corrector. System working @ native f4/ 1016 FL 1.485 arcsec/pixel- FOV 51.2x51.2 |
| Mount | Celestron CI700 controlled by the SiTech servo Goto Control System with Pittman 8000 series motors. Pulley and belt system |
| Camera (CCD) | Starlight Xpress SXVR-H16 monochrome with Starlight Xpress USB filter wheel. |
| Exposures | Ha: 52' (
Selectively used to enhance Bok globules & HII areas. (4' subs
unbinned)
L: 78' R:30' G:30' B:30' [3' sub exposures all unbinned] No dark frames/ Flats removed. |
| Guiding | ST80 refractor F5 with a Starlight Xpress HX516 CCD. Mounted via a side by side accessory plate. |
| Filters | Astronomik typeII clr RGB filter set |
| Notes/ Conditions |
Conditions- Taking the Lum the seeing was a little average with heavy due, transparency was also average. Taking the colour channels conditions were quite poor. Numerous runs to acquire useable data. Vignetting to corners causing poor illumination. Slight misalignment with MPCC in the imaging train. Future purchase of a Televue Paracorr and Astronomik 48mm filters to avoid these problems. Subs were regulated to -15* degrees temperature. |