IC 4665 in Ophiuchus

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Scope: Zenithstar 66 mm APO @ f/4.9 Location: Laguna Mountains, CA   15 May, 2010  Camera: Artemis285

Exposure:  15 x 2 min IR/UV Block (1x1 bin),    11 x 1 min RGB Exposures (2x2 bin) 

Processing: Images were captured  with Artemis Capture (as FITs).  Aligned/stacked and dark subtracted in Astroart with Sigma Combine.   IR / UV Blocking  filter  and Color channels were scaled and  color balanced in Astroart.  Channels were co-registered in Astroart.   Luminance construction consisted of the IR/UV blocking filter exposures.  Curves and Levels applied in Photoshop to the Luminance construction to optimize object features.    Final LRGB combine was done in Photoshop using Luminance Layering.  A light background noise reduction was applied to the image in PixInsight LE (SGBNR).   Final Image size is approximately 1392 x 1040.

All exposures in this image were guided; North is up in this image.  This object is an open cluster in the constellation of Ophiuchus.  It is one of our Milky Way's brighter open clusters, yet it did not make it in Messier's Catalog or in the New General Catalog (NGC). As can be seem in the image it is a rather coarse cluster with about 30 members and it is relatively close at 1,400 light years making its size over a degree in circumference. It is for these likely reasons it did not make the more popular catalogs of early modern astronomy. IC 4665's age is estimated ant a rather young 36 million years. IC 4665 is  approximately 1,400 light years distant  from Earth.  The Horizontal FOV is 88'.

Image center is located approximately - Equatorial 2000: RA: 17h 45m 17.28s Dec: +05°40'03.46"

All images and content remain the property of Jim Thommes - copyright 2003 - 2012

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