Scope: C8 f/5 Location: Del Mar, CA 11/22/2003 Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 15 x 20 sec and 14 x 72 sec Luminance Exposure with IR Block filter and SkyGlo LP filter . 16 x 16 sec RGB Exposures
Processing: Captured and stacked in K3CCDTools with L,R,G,B saved as FITs. Luminance was the IR / SkGlo filter exposures. LRGB masters were co- registered in Astroart. Some Lowpass filtering was applied followed by un-sharp mask on the Luminance frame. Luminance exposures combine was done in Photoshop. LRGB combine was done in Photoshop using Luminance Layering . Ears were removed with Loreal; background was smoothed in SGBNR as saved as TIF. The result TIF had minor touch up in Photoshop.
This image was taken in my front yard in Del Mar there is a fair amount of light pollution here. It was taken a few days after NGC281. Processing was nearly identical, but I think the image came out better than NGC281 - perhaps it was due to the greater number of exposures and resulting noise reduction. The other main difference is that it was shoot at f/5 rather than f3.3. Perhaps this improved contrast over the bright light polluted sky glow. Horizontal FOV is 16'