Scope: C8 f/2.8; Location:
Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert, CA; 12 Nov. 2004; Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 90 sec and 16 x 30 sec Luminance exposures with IR Block Filter;
15 x 45 sec RGB
Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools. Aligned/stacked in Registax and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart. Channels were co-registered in
Astroart. Star sizes were reduced somewhat by combining (with mask) the
shorter 30 sec exposure with that of the 90 sec Luminance exposure. 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 the luminance channel and the final result. Resized to approximately 800x600.
This image was a guided image. North is up in this image. This object is mostly obscured
by Milky Way dust. If not for this obscuring dust this object would
approach the brightness of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. As such it is
not an object popularly imaged. Horizontal FOV is about 30'