Introduction
The North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus is probably one of the most popular widefield subjects of the northern hemisphere. This beautiful field of view contains a very large emission nebula for which it’s shape resembles that of the continent of North America.
Photographing the North America Nebula with unmodified Nikon D7000
I was very curious to see how much h-alpha my unmodified Nikon D7000 would capture when photographing this emission nebula. I shot this image on a dark location in Germany (Hohen Woos) during an astrotrip. I used the Astrotrac as mount and the Nikkor 80-200mm F2.8 @ 200mm F4. You can clearly see this lens has some problems used at 200mm. Not sure if this is astigmatism or coma, but more on that in a later post.
I was very pleased with the end result, especially how much h-alpha the unmodified Nikon D7000 was able to capture.
Here is a crop of the part that is called ‘the wall’;
Details
Date: 16/04/13
Location: Hohen Woos – Germany
Optics: Nikkor 80-200mm F2.8 used on 200mm F4
Mount: Astrotrac
Camera: Unmodified Nikon D7000 used at ISO1600
Guiding: none
Exposure: 16 x 240 sec.
Processing
Processed in PixInsight
No darks, no flats, no bias
