Horsehead VDB 152 Wide Field Horsehead

(Mouseover for the Ha added version)

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

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Date: July - August , 2008
Exposure: HaLRGB - 1530m : 555m : 300m : 240m : 240m
51 x 1800 Ha, 37 x 900s L, 20 x 900s R, 16 x 900s G, 16 x 900 B
Processing: CCDAutoPilot4 used to collect data over multiple nights (started on July 7th and ended on August 11th). CCDSoft for image acquisition, CCDStack on a x64 Vista machine for Image calibration, Astrodon LRGB filters (35 flats each L,R,G,B, Bias subtracted and Sigma Clip combined, 65 bias frames Sigma Clip combined, 40 x 900s and 25 x 1800s darks Sigma Clip combined, ), alignment, normalization, FITS master files creation, and RGB raw TIFF creation. Photoshop CS2 for final HaLRGB processing, final layers adjustment and jpg conversion for the website.
Conditions: Good to Excellent, Mag 6-7 Skies
Scope: FSQ-106N
Camera: SBIG STL-11000M, -20°
Comments: I took a few hours of Ha data just to see what might be there. To my surprise, there was quite a bit of detail that came out, but it was extremely faint and noisy even after 8 hours of data. I decided that if this was going to be useful data, I would have to get a good bit more. 26 hours of data later, it was better, but because the ADU range was only about 600 counts, the data was still noisy, but enough to add to the RGB to bring out the extra detail.