Scope: C8 f/2.8; Location:
Dos Picos Park, Ramona; 10 Feb. 2005 (Luminance). Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert, CA;
12 Feb. 2005 (Color); Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 48 sec and 16 x 24 sec Luminance exposures with IR Block Filter;
12 x 48 sec RGB
Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in
IRIS. Central gradient was removed in IRIS. Channels were co-registered in IRIS. The
shorter luminance exposure was used to reduce star size and improve core detail
in the longer 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.
Richardson-Lucy deconvolution (4 iterations) was applied to the luminance
channel prior to LRGB combine. Resized to approximately 800x600.
This image was a guided image. North is up in this image. These galaxies form
two of the "Leo Triplett" galaxy group in the constellation of Leo.
M65 is on the right and M66 is on the left. Horizontal FOV is about 30'.
Equatorial 2000: RA: 11h 19m 34s Dec: +13°03'57" (Image center)