I've been wanting to try out my Astro-Tech 8" Ritchey-Chrétien that I bought last year and just hadn't gotten much chance to use it. At 1625mm focal length, I wanted to wait until I had some of my astrophotography procedures down before trying to image with something that long.

I also had the opportunity to install a dew heaters strip into my ST8300M to hopefully fix the dewing problem that people in more humid climes have been having, me included. I had received the heater strip from SBIG on Friday, but didn't have a chance to install it. So, on Friday night with 75% humidity, I wasn't even able to get 10 exposures before a big dew splotch covered most of the window covering the CCD chip.

I made it a point to install the heater Saturday before going out to image again. It seemed like it had done the trick as I was able to get 105 minutes of h-Alpha of M-27, but when I started the color exposures, the dew once again reared its ugly head. However, it seems that one of my solder joints wasn't quite up to snuff and had worked its way loose, so I'm guessing that happened about the time I started the color sequences. I'll hopefully have a chance to get the color data next weekend.

So, here's the result of the 105 minutes of h-Alpha. I really like the look of this image. It shows the nebula as the big ball of gas that it is, and just starts to show the fainter outer halo that's evident in very deep images.

As always, click on the thumbnail to see a much larger image:

Messier 27 - The "Bow Tie" Nebula
Imaging Instrument - Astro-Tech AT8RC, 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien, ATFF field flattener
Camera - SBIG ST8300M w/ FW5-8300 Filter Wheel
Filter - Baader 7nm Hydrogen Alpha
Mount - Celestron CGE
Guide Scope - Orion ST80 w/ Starshoot Autoguider
Exposure - 35 X 180 seconds, Binned 2X2
50 Darks, No Flats, No Bias
Stacked with Deep-Sky Stacker
Processed with FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS4