NGC281: This is a large region of nebulosity with a star cluster, and an active star-forming region. The small open star cluster IC1590 can be seen near the center of the nebula. The dark globule to the right of IC1590 is a "Bok Globule." The brightest member of IC1590 is a multiple-star system, whose light helps ionize the nebula's gas, causing the red hue of the nebula. This nebula lies about 10,000 light years distant, which would make the nebula about 90 light years across.

Technical Information:

(HaR)RGB: 510:75:75:75 (Luminance layer consists of a blending of seventeen 30-minute images through an Astrodon Ha filter and five 15-minute images through an Astrodon red filter; red channel consisted of a similar, but not identical, blend of the same data; green and blue channels were both five 15-minute images with Astrodon filters. All images unbinned).

Equipment: AP130 f/6 Starfire, SBIG ST-10XME with CFW8 (Astrodon filter set), on a Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.

Image Acquisition/Camera Control: CCDSoft v5, controlled with CCDAutoPilot3, working in concert with TheSky v6.

Processing: All images calibrated (darks and dawn flats), debloomed, aligned, combined and deconvolved (Ha and red used on luminance layer only) in CCDStack. Color combine in CCDStack. Finish work (curves and levels, Gaussian blur of color layer, high pass filter on Ha and Luminance layers) was done in Photoshop CS2.

Location: Data acquired remotely from the Tejas Observatory, located on the grounds of New Mexico Skies, near Mayhill, NM (elevation 7300 feet).

Date: Luminance images taken on the nights of January 3 and 4, 2007. Color images taken on the night of January 6, 2007.

Pixel scale: 1.67 arcseconds per pixel.

CCD Chip temperature: -25C

Seeing: Fair to poor.

Transparency: Good two of the three nights; poor the other.

Moon Phase: Close to full

Copyright 2007, 2013 Mark de Regt

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