Cosmic Tadpoles - IC410

Ha image of emission nebula IC410 acquired using my system at AstroCamp, Nerpio, Spain. Comparing this with the image of IC410 (below) taken using my ST-10/Megrez 120 system in Bristol shows the benefit of the dark skies at AstroCamp enabling an equivalent image in terms of signal-to-noise ratio to be acquired in less than a third of the total exposure time. The higher resolution of the STL-6303E/CDK 12.5 system at AstroCamp can be seen although it is not as significant as might be expected. This is probably explained by a combination of poor seeing at AstroCamp over the three nights of acquisition and the high precision guiding by the Starlight Xpress Active Optics unit attached to the system in Bristol.

Right ascension: 05h 22m 44.17s | Declination: +33° 24' 45.2" | Distance: 12,000 Light Years

Field of view: 37.4 x 24.9 arcmin

Camera: SBIG STL-6303E
Telescope: PlaneWave Instruments CDK 12.5 F/7.9
Guiding: External 80mm F/4 guidescope with an Atik 314L+ for guiding
Mount: Paramount PME
Filters: Astrodon Ha (5nm)
Exposures: Ha 10 x 10 min
Total exposure: 1 hour 40 minutes
Image composition: Monochrome Ha
Scale: 0.73 arcsec/pixel
Image acquired: 7&8/01/2013; 29/01/2013

Image capture with MaxIm DL, FocusMax, ACP; Image processed with MaxIm DL, Photoshop CS4, Focus Magic, Silver Efex Pro 2