M37 in Auriga
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Scope: C8 f/2.8 Location: Del Mar, CA 2 Dec. 2004 Camera: ToUcam SC3 Exposure: 16 x 36 sec and 16 x 12 sec Luminance Exposures with IR Block and Orion SkyGlo filters. 15 x 20 sec RGB Exposures Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart. Channels were co-registered in Astroart. The 36 sec IR block exposure was used as the main luminance channel; the 12 second exposure was used to minimize star size somewhat and to help with separation between close stars. Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering. Color balancing and final touches in Photoshop. SGBNR (PixInsight LE) was used to smooth background noise on Luminance channel. Image was resized to 800 x 600. This image was taken at a light polluted site - so the skyglo filter was used. This was a guided image. M37 is one of several Messier Open Clusters in Auriga and is often compared to its cousin M38 about 6 degrees away. M37 age is estimated at 330 million years; its distance is estimated at 4,000 to 5,000 light years. Horizontal FOV is 30'
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