NGC6905: NGC6905 is a tiny, dim (magnitude 12) planetary nebula, the type of nebula which it is generally thought our Sun will produce as nuclear fusion slows and then dies in its core, and it expels its outer layers of gas. Estimates of its distance from Earth vary, but tend to be around 4,200 light years.

Technical Information:

LRGB: 260:80:80:80 (All channels consisted of unbinned twenty minute images).

Equipment: Meade 10" LX200 at f/12, an SBIG ST-8XE camera/CFW-8 color filter wheel with Astrodon filters, guided by an SBIG AO-7 adaptive optics device, guiding at about 11 Hz (luminance) and 5 Hz (RGB).

Image Acquisition/Camera Control: CCDSoft V5.

Processing: All images calibrated (darks, dawn flats and flat-darks) and registered in CCDSoft. All layers average combined in Ray Gralak's sigma reject program. Lucy-Richardson deconvolution routine applied using AIP4WIN. I color combined in CCDSoft, and in Photoshop, and blended the two. Very gentle unsharp mask applied to the luminance layer, and adjustment of curves and levels, performed in Photoshop 6.0.

Location: All images taken in my yard in Redmond, WA, USA, elevation 500'.

Date: Luminance images taken on the night of August 8, 2004; RGB taken on the night of August 9, 2004.

CCD Temperature: -20C

Moon Phase: Waning crescent

Image Scale: .6 Arcseconds per pixel

Seeing: 2.0 Arcsecond typical FWHM in single calibrated image.

Copyright 2004 Mark de Regt