Can't enter the comp with this...

[ChrisLX200]

A pity, was perfect for the title of the competition. Only the camera can do this, and a DSLR has made it easier than it ever was (still difficult).

NGC6992 (part of Veil Nebula), invisible to the naked eye, glimpsed through medium telescopes from a dark site (preferable using an Oxygen III filter).

Canon 350D (unmodified)
TeleView Genesis SDF 102mm APO refractor, Losmandy G11 mount, auto-guded using Teleview Pronto and ST4 guider.
Exposures: 8 x 10min subframes, processed and stacked using MaximDL and ImagesPLUS. Final corrections and crop in Photoshop.

Context: A single processed un-cropped sub-frame prior to stacking.

It was going to be that or this: M27 (the Dumbell Nebula). Planetary nebula in Aquilla. Same equipment but different exposure details and processing. This object is much easier to see though, binoculars will show it.

The equipment required to do this....

 

[ChrisLX200]

Yep, it's out of date - images taken during late summer months. Not much chance of getting many clear nights this month.

The setup cost? Well the mount is about £2500, the Genesis SDF I got s/h for £1400, the Pronto was about £600. That ST4 guider is longer made but you can buy an equivalent for a couple hundred I think. The pier I made myself, 9" x 3/8" wall steel steam pipe filled with sand, 5ft into the ground and a few tons of concrete around it. Spent far too much money on lots of other accessories as well (not to mention eyepieces, other telescopes like a 12" Newt and 10" SCT, cooled CCD cameras). It's a flexible setup offering many different combinations of equipment suited to particular target objects.