Scope: C8 f/5; Location:
Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert, CA; 12 Nov. 2004; Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 90 sec Luminance exposure 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 a touch of a masked minimum
filter in the Luminance channel. 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
720x540.
This image was a guided image. North is up in this image. This image could be
better. Breezy conditions hampered stability, enlarged stars and caused lack of
crispness in the galaxy structure. Perhaps this will be an opportunity for
another try another season. The fuzzy object just above the galaxy structure is
NGC1097A and its influence on the main galaxy structure is barely noticeable
just below NGC1097A. Horizontal FOV is about 16'