"North American Nebula" NGC7000 in Cygnus

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Scope: Megrez II at f/3.2,  Location: Dos Picos Park, Ramona, CA   30 June 2006,   Camera: Artemis285

Exposure: 6 x 360 sec H-Alpha (1x1),  6 x 120 sec IR/UV Block Filter (1x1), 6 x 90 sec RGB Exposures (2x2). Each frame of a two frame mosaic

Processing: Images were captured  with Artemis Capture (as FITs).  Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. For each frame, Luminance,  H-Alpha, IR/UV Block,  and Color exposures were scaled and  color balanced in Astroart. Exposures were co-registered in Astroart.   Central Gradient removal on was done on each exposure in Astroart. Luminance Channel was constructed with the H-Alpha and IR/UV block exposures. Curves and Levels applied in Photoshop to optimize object features. Final LRGB combine was done in Photoshop using Luminance Layering (or LLRGB) - G2V calibration factors were applied.  Each frame was lightly sharpened. Mosaic combine was done with Photoshop with slight adjustment to the lower frame color balance to match that of the upper frame.  SGBNR was used to smooth background noise on the final result.   Final Image size is approximately 1307x1850.

All exposures in this image were guided; North is up in this image. NGC 7000 is located in the constellation of Cygnus and is popularly known as the "North American Nebula" due to its distinctive shape. The nebula is a relatively close 1,600 light years. This image replaces and earlier image that can be seen in the Archives here . The Horizontal FOV is 132'.

Image center is located approximately - Equatorial 2000: RA: 20h 58m 54s Dec: +44°15'28"

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

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