NORTH AMERICA NEBULA | NGC2237

I started my Astrophotography journey on June 16th 2022, at the time the North America Nebula was perfectly positioned for my first test, It was pure luck I chose a bright target, I had no idea, I started the night shooting it then moved on to shoot the Andromeda Galaxy a few hours later, I didn't have any equipment at all, just my DSLR camera with a 80mm lens that was not manual, so the focus ring didn't have a stop making it more difficult to properly focus, I never heard of a bahtinov mask at the time too, and the cheapest Manfrotto tripod. I had to take 50 shots probably less than 5 seconds each, and re align the target, rise repeat at the time I did not have any mount so I used my iphone to find the targets. So much happened until the North America Nebula came back in the sky, so a proper tribute to revisit this beautiful target. Here is a progression on this target, I used this nebula as my learning object, and I did re-shoot it often as my learning progressed so it is nice to see the evolution.

25h 40 min total integration time | 300s subs
Sharpstar 61 EDPH II + 0.7 reducer @f4.5
ASI183MC PRO dedicated astrocamera
AM5 Mount
SVBONY UV/IR cut filter
SVBONY 7nm dual band filter
SVBONY 30mm f4 Guide Scope
ASI120MM mini guide camera with red filter
ASIAir mini
Bortle 4-5
Software: DeepSkyStacker > Siril > Veralux > Starnet > Graxpert > Cosmic Clarity > Photoshop > Topaz Denoiser

5h 20m of data, subs of 5 minutes each.

HOO and natural color

Sharpstar 61 EDPH II + 0.7 reducer @f4.5
ASI183MC PRO dedicated astrocamera
iOptron GEM 28 mount
SVBONY 7nm Duo Band filter
SVBONY 30mm f4 Guide Scope
ASI120MM mini guide camera with red filter
ASIAir mini
Bortle 8-9

Software: DeepSkyStacker > Siril > Astrosharp > Photoshop > Topaz Denoiser

The images above shows my progression over the years on this target, NGC7000 was the very first DSO I pointed a camera at, I had no clue what I was soing but was able to capture that first ever light of my life, I consider Andromeda my fisrt target because I shot it in the same night and processed it first so it was my first complete process from capturing to revealing the DSO, but the North America was technically shot 2 hours before Andromeda.

I’ll continue to capture this nebula for the next years to come and compare my progress with my younger self.