With some recent tracking problems likely due to the rollers slipping on the aluminum strips that the platform rides on, I did an experiment and replaced the aluminum with some strips of thick, textured ABS plastic. The tracking definitely seemed to improve, although it was still not great.
The Northern Lagoon nebula is a cute little puff near the more famous Bubble nebula. Although it is not near as large nor as structured as the Bubble, I was able to capture plenty of detail in a wide field shot that was achieved with 16 frames in one platform run. Each frame was again 30 seconds, and many of them were pristine. The colors are slightly exaggerated to achieve more contrast, and because I think it’s pretty.
An interesting fact is that the nebula contains the largest known “protostar,” a very young star forming in the nebula. It’s size is over 300 times that of our solar system.
