Technical Information:
LRGB: 570:180:195:240 (a total of almost 20 hours of exposures); luminance layer consists of a blend of 34 fifteen-minute images and 20 three-minute images, all
using a luminance filter; R channel is 12 fifteen-minute images taken through a red filter; G consists of 13 fifteen-minute images taken through a green filter, while B is the combination
of 12 twenty-minute images taken through a blue filter. I gathered a lot of Ha data, but it added nothing, so ended up not using it.
Equipment: RC Optical Systems 14.5 inch Ritchey-Chrétien carbon fiber truss telescope, with ion-milled optics and RCOS field flattener, at about f/9,
and an
SBIG STX-16803 with internal filter wheel (SBIG filter set), guided by an SBIG AO-X/STX Guider, all riding on a Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.
Image Acquisition/Camera Control: Maxim DL, controlled with ACP Expert/Scheduler, working in concert with TheSky X.
Processing: All images calibrated (darks, bias and sky flats), aligned, and combined in Pixinsight. Color combine in Pixinsight. Some finish work (background
neutralization, color
calibration, Noise XTerminator and Blur XTerminator, gradient removal) done in Pixinsight; some finish work (LRGB combination, contrast and saturation adjustment) was done in Photoshop CC.
Location: Data acquired remotely from Sierra Remote Observatories, Auberry, California, USA.
Date: Images taken on many nights from December 2023 through March 2024. Image posted September 26, 2024.
Date: Image scale of full-resolution image: 0.56 arcseconds per pixel.
Seeing: Generally good
CCD Chip temperature: -25C
