Original size: 1458x971
DATE
July 24th, 2008, 11:00pm to 12:30am PST
PHOTO
Exposure: 10 x 6 minutes
Focal: 540mmm, f/5.4
EQUIPMENT
Imaging Scope: Televue NP101is, 1.25" H-Alpha filter
Camera: SBIG ST2000XCM
Guide camera: StarShootAutoGuider
Guide scope: Orion Short 80mm
Mount: Takahashi EM-400
SITE & CONDITIONS
My backyard, Sunnyvale, CA
Seeing:Bad
Transparency: Very poor
SOFTWARE
Stacking: DeepSkyStacker
Processing: PixInsight + Photoshop
COMMENTS
This is my very first H-Alpha image, and also my first "official" image taken with the ST2k. Not particularly comforting to use a one-shot color camera to take H-Alpha images, but hey, that's all I had! (plus the 40D which is also one-shot color of course). Focusing can certainly be improved, and the fact that I used a 1.25" h-Alpha filter created some terrible vignetting I had to correct using the DBE tool from PixInsight. Like most of my images, I plan to revisit this object in the future when I hopefully have better skills.
