- Exposure: CRGB+Ha
- Clear: 14x600s + 54x900s
- Red: 22x900s
- Green: 16x900s
- Blue: 22x900s
- Ha: 27x1800s
- All exposures binned 1x1
- Total of 44h 20m!
- Telescope: TMB152
- Mount: Paramount ME
- Camera: SBIG STL-6303 CCD, AstroDon E-Series TruBalance Filters
- Location: JMSM Observatory, New Mexico (Owned by Mike Sherick)
- Capturing data for this image was a group effort by Mike Sherick, Dean Salman, Rick Wiggins, and myself. Thanks guys for some great data!
- Date/Time:
- Clear:
- March 4/5, 2008, 22:45-05:13 MST
- March 8/9, 2008, 21:31-05:25 MST
- March 9/10, 2008, 21:32 MST - 05:57 MDT
- Red:
- March 3/4, 2008, 23:07-05:29 MST
- Green:
- March 25/26, 2008, 21:35-02:21 MDT
- Blue:
- March 11/12, 2008, 22:06-03:16 MDT
- March 15, 2008, 02:15-06:15 MDT
- Ha:
- February 22, 2008, 00:16-03:00 MST
- February 25, 2008, 23:40-00:42 MST
- March 18/19, 2008, 23:03-05:05 MDT
- March 19/20, 2008, 23:23-05:17 MDT
- March 21/22, 2008, 23:28-02:49 MDT
- Processing:
- Taken in MaxIM/DL v4 using CCD Commander.
- Reduced, aligned, combined sub-exposures, and RGB combine in CCDStack.
- "Super luminance" created in CCDStack by summing all clear, red, green, and blue exposures.
- Positive Constraint deconvolution to "super luminance" in CCDStack - both 100 and 50 iterations.
- DDP to RGB, Ha, and "super luminance" in CCDStack and output to TIFs.
- "Super luminance" 100 and 50 iteration deconvolutions layered in Photoshop. 50 iteration version used for the brightest stars and the background.
- GradientXTerminator performed on RGB and new "super luminance".
- Shadow/Highlights tool on "super luminance" to better show the full brightness range.
- Layered Ha data into RGB data via lighten blend mode to Red (100%) and Blue (20%) channels.
- RGB converted to Lab color space.
- "Super luminance" pasted into luminance channel of RGB image.
- Photoshop Despeckle filter performed on a and b channels.
- Increased color saturation while in Lab space.
- Converted back to RGB space.
- Unsharp Mask to the brighter parts of the galaxies.
- Curvers and levels for color balance adjustment.
- NoiseNinja in Photoshop.
- General star clean-up.
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- Names:
- The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101, NGC5457 (lower right)
- NGC5474 (upper left)
- NGC5477 (upper right)
- Parts of M101:
- NGC5471, NGC5447, NGC5462, NGC5451, NGC5453, NGC5455, NGC5458, NGC5450, NGC5449, NGC5461
- Type: Spiral Galaxy
- Constellation: Ursa Major
- Distance: 27 million light years
- More information in my blog entry here.
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