Scope: C8 f/2.8 Location: Laguna Mountains, CA; 17 Sept. 2004 Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 15 x 60 sec and 12 x 16 sec Luminance exposures with Baader IR Block Filter, 6 x 240 sec H-Alpha exposure; 12 x 32 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. The Nebulosity was extracted
from HA and then combined with the 60 sec IR for Luminance in Photoshop -
The 16 sec IR was used to minimize some star bloating. Extracted nebula from HA was used to provide
a very small amount of false
color for the nebula in the Red 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 Luminance channel
as well as the final result. Image was resized to 800 x 600.
This image was taken at a dark site with little light pollution. This is a guided image.
This object is referenced in two catalogues Caldwell 9 and SH2-155. It is also
popularly known as the Cave Nebula. This object is located in the constellation
of Cepheus. One distinctive feature is the dark area
left of the bright nebula with few stars. This is a region of dust obscuring the
star field behind it. Horizontal FOV is about 30'