Scope: C8 f/2.8 Location: Laguna Mountains CA; 12 June 2004; Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 20 sec and 16 x 5 sec Luminance exposures with IR Block Filter; 15 x 12,14,18 sec R,G,B respectively
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. Shorter Luminance exposure was normal combined with core mask to desaturate and sharpen the core in the Luminance channel. Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering. Color balancing and final touches in Photoshop. SGBNR was used to smooth background noise on the luminance channel and the final result. Resized to approximately 800x600.
This This image was taken with fairly good conditions at a dark site. However, this object is very low on my horizon - about 8 degrees. The different exposure lengths for RGB is an attempt to compensate for atmospheric dispersion for the different wavelengths. This is an unguided image. This image replaces an earlier image that can be seen in the Archives here. Horizontal FOV is about 30'.