August 3, 2008

RGB M27 Dumbell (and a star trail image)

Well, what a quite amazing night that was! I was at a BBQ early in the evening, and managed to escape early (wife could see me staring up at the sky all the time), got home and set up. The Milky Way was bright and crisp across the Zenith, no wind, no rain, no clouds, and the sky got REALLY dark (down to 20.30 Mag persquare arcminute or something on my sky meter).

Anyway, here goes: M27 Dumbell
OTA: C11 @ f/10
Guiding: SW ED80 + DSI-C + PHD (via EQMOD)
Ha Imaging: QHY8 + MaximDL, 30 x 300s, IDAS
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus + PSCS2 + Noel Carboni’s AstroTools

(Click on image for larger version)

While waiting for this sequence to finish, I started playing with the 350D, and this image popped out of the camera earlier today. Some heavy duty light pollution removal, and a two layer composition wth alpha channel, and here is the end result.

(Click on image for larger version)

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