Scope: StarMax127 f/4 Location: Del Mar, CA 7/3/2003 Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 18 x 12 sec IR filter plus 12 x 32 sec Orion Sky Glo filter plus 9 x 90 sec H-Alpha filer for Luminance, 18 x 16/8/16 sec each RGB filter.
Processing: Captured aligned and stacked in K3CCDTools with IR, SkyGlo HA,,R,G,B saved as FITs. Luminance was a combination of IR, SkyGlo, and HA exposures. LRGB masters were registered and combined in Astroart. Some Lowpass filtering was applied followed by un-sharp mask on the Luminance frame. LRGB result was saved as a BMP. Background smoothing in SGBNR. Minor touch up in Photoshop.
This image was taken from my front yard in Del Mar with significant light pollution. The sky was clear and steady however. The detail captured in the image was made possible with the HA filter. Otherwise, sky glow tended to wash everything out. The color exposures were kept short due to the light pollution so the star colors are muted. Horizontal FOV is 30'