ASTRO: NGC 6992

Hi all. I took some astrophotos Sunday night. This one in particular came
out pretty well considering the relatively short time I spent on exposures,
and so I thought I would share. I've been wanting to image this one all
summer, but never got a good opportunity to do so, until Sunday night This
is a stack of nine images for a total exposure time of 38 minutes. I used a
method I learned a few weeks ago to enhance the color and detail of the
nebula without significantly changing the appearance of the stars. Not sure
if the results are what I wanted, but I thought it was interesting. I used
the method of layering and then dust and scratch removal to first get rid of
the stars so I could work on the color of the nebula first, and then bring
the stars back with the second, luminosity layer. I missed a couple of
stars though, so their color is obviously off. I was trying to emulate a
narrowband image, but my green somehow came out blue. But it looks kind of
neat anyway.

Enjoy,

George

Image:

9 images of total 38 minutes at ISO 1600
dark subs - 5x5 minutes each
No flats, unfortunately
Softwa

Canon utility capture software
Maxim DL for stretching and gradient correction
Photoshop CS extended for levels, contrast, star masking with dust and
scratch removal tool, saturation tool, smart sharpen

Equipment:

Modified Konus 200 mm f5 Newtonian
Baader Coma corrector with Baader UV/Infrared blocking filter (allows Ha
passthrough)
Hutech-modified Canon T1i
Orion Shorty 80 mm auto guide scope with Star shooter auto guider
Losmandy G-11 on Losmandy heavy duty tripod.

Taken from the Louisville Astronomical Society Observatory site near Curby,
Indiana on September 12, 2010