Before I collected the last data of the Elephant's Trunk this month, I slewed to the Ring Nebula before it got fully dark out and imaged it for 17 minutes with the L-eNhance filter. It was considerably smaller than I thought it was going to be at 700mm of focal length, but BlurXTerminator and the 1.1"/pixel resolution came in clutch and allowed me to crop the image substantially to reveal the Ring up close.

34x30s lights (17 minutes), flats, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight.
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Ring Nebula (M57)
Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
 Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#ringnebula #nebula #nebulae #planetarynebula #planetarynebulae #m57 #pixinsight #optolong #optolonglenhance #astrophotography #astronomy #playerone #playeroneastronomy #arescpro #playeronearescpro #skywatchergti

After a few clear nights on the Elephant's Trunk, I had one more clear night before a week of rain so I went after a bright target that would look decent even with just a night's worth of data on it. The Western Veil Nebula (aka the Witch's Broom) is pretty bright object, and we haven't had a chance to image the Veil the past two years, so I gave it a shot. I got 3.85 hours on it with the Newtonian, and it turned out pretty good.
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Western Veil/Witch's Broom Nebula (NGC 6960)
Celestron Astromaster 114 (Scope), Skywatcher GTi (Mount)
Player One Ares-C Pro (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #veilnebula #nebula #ngc6960 #astrophotography #astronomy #bloomingtonmn #mn #minnesota #minnesota #bortle8 #bortle8sky #optolong #optolonglenhance #playerone #arescpro #playeronearescpro #pixinsight #photography

I’m so glad that I spent more time on the Elephant’s Trunk! A lot of faint nebulae were visible in my last image but now that I have over 10 hours on it, it all just pops out. It gives the trunk a lot of contrast, revealing all of the detailed structure it has. I even gave BlurXTerminator a go which fixed the star shapes and sharpened up the nebulae, and made the already-detailed trunk even more incredible.

421x90s lights (10.53 hours), darks, flats, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight.
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The Elephant's Trunk (IC 1396)
Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #nebula #elephantstrunknebula #ic1396 #photography #astrophotography #astronomy #pixinsight #graxpert #playerone #playeroneastronomy #sonysensor #arescpro