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Scope: C8 f/4.8, Location: Dos Picos Park, Ramona, CA, 29 June 2005 Camera: Artemis285
Exposure: 8 x 120 sec Luminance exposures (1x1) with IR block, 5 x 300 sec H-Alpha Exposure (1x1) 6 x 60 sec RGB exposures (2x2).
Processing: Images were captured Artemis Capture (as FITs). Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance, H-Alpha, and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart. Channels were co-registered in Astroart. Central Gradient removal was also performed in Astroart. The H-Alpha exposure was the main exposure for the luminance construction - the IR block exposure was combined with the H-Alpha for star depth with the fainter stars. There were difficulties with the focal reducer mount and possibly focus in the exposures. As a result, some star repair was performed. Trailed stars were repaired by a "Darken" recombine with a self image offset the direction of the trail. Also AstroPlugins Star Repair was used in Photoshop. These repairs were performed on the Luminance channel. Final LRGB combine was done in Photoshop using Luminance Layering (or LLRGB). Color balancing and final touches were done in Photoshop. SGBNR was used to smooth background noise on the final result. Final Image size is approximately 1370x1020.
North is up in this image. The image was guided for all exposures. LBN 168 is an emission nebula located in Cygnus. It is also known as Cederblad 173. Horizontal FOV is 30'
Image center is approximately - Equatorial 2000: RA: 19h 59m 49s Dec: +35°18'33"