Horsehead IC 434
The Horsehead Complex		 Horsehead

(These are very large files - Broadband recommended on anything over the 50% size)

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(Click here for 75% of full size - 1.8MB)

(Click here for 100% of full size - 2.7MB)

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Date: December 10, 2005
Exposure: LRGB 40:240:180:210 : 8 x 300 L, 18 x 600 &4 x 900 R, 12 x 600 & 4 x 900 RG, and 15 x 600 & 4 x 900 B
Processing: CCDAutoPilot3 and CCDSoftV5 for image acquisition, CCDStack for Image calibration,(5 flats each RGB, dark subtracted and median combined, 20 bias frames median combined, 10-900s darks median combined), alignment, normalization, color combining. PixInsight for background correction and color gradient removal. Photoshop CS for final color balance and jpg conversion.
Conditions: Average, Mag 3-4 Skies
Scope: Takahashi FSQ-106N
Camera: SBIG STL-11000, Astrodon LRGB filters, -20°
Comments: The weather has been fairly unstable so I had to take bits and pieces over multiple nights. I started on December 10th 05' and ended on January 26th 06'. Many nights it would start out very clear, but high clouds would roll in during the night and ruin most of the images. I threw away 4 hours of luminance data and 2 hours of Green data because of this. The Green data is less than what I needed but just couldn't get the weather to cooperate. This is my second light image with this combo. I started using CCDStack for image calibration and really like the way it handles the big files. The alignment routine is also very good and works great with these very large files.