Horsehead M101 Horsehead

(Click on image for Full Resolution)

(Click here for my Vixen 102mm/ST-8E attempt on 03-21-2002)


Date: April 27, 2004
Exposure: HaLRGB 120:360:120:120:180 : 6 x 900s Ha, 24 x 900s L, 8 x 900s R,G, 12 x 900s B
Processing: CCDSoftV5 for image acquisition. MaxIm for image calibration,(20 flats each LRGB, dark subtracted and median combined, 25 bias frames median combined, 15-900s darks median combined). Dead/hot pixel removal, alignment, normalization, color combining, mild DDP on L only, unsharp on L only using CCDSharp 2 iterations. Photoshop CS for final color balance and jpg conversion.
Conditions: Seeing - Average, Transparency - Good
Scope: AP180EDT @ f/9 on a Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-10XME/CFW-8A, -20°
Comments: This was collected over several nights with varying seeing conditions.The Luminance was binned 1X1 and the RGB frames were binned 2x2. Binning the color here has always produced terrible gradients and this time was no exception. I plan to just spend the extra time and shoot everything 1x1 in the future.