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Image Acquisition Information
Telescope: 16" RCOS Ritchey Chretien Telescope (ion milled at f/9)
Camera: SBIG STL-6303 M
Guiding: SBIG AOL, Astrodon MOAG AOG (SBIG 237
with FLR)
Filters: Astrodon Ha, SII, OIII, L, R, G, B
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount ME
Acquisition Programs: The Sky,CCDAutopliot III, CCD Soft.
Processing Programs: CCDStack, Maxim DL, Adobe Photoshop CS/3
Date: July 30-August 13, 2008
Time: 21 x20 min ( 7
hours) for each of Ha, SII, OIII, L, R, G, B
Total of 49 hours imaging time.
Processing: CCD Stack and PhotoShop CS/3
Image Information: As I noted on the previous pages, we believe this nebula to be 'co-discovered' (technically, pending
formal declaration by the IAU, the object has been "imaged", but whether it has been discovered is an issue still pending),
first by Dave Jurasevich (of the Mt Wilson Observatory) on July 6, 2008 and submitted by him to the IAU on July 10, 2008.
His images were not posted at the time of our independant "discovery" (July 17, 2008). He deserves recognition as being
the first to image and submit this object. You can learn about Dave's excellent work at www.starimager.com and about his initial discovery of this nebula at http://tinyurl.com/5q4qnu .
The significance of this image is that it is a composite of LRGB
and NB information. The image contains a great deal of "data', literally containing 49 hours of data. The central blue
star is mote clearly visable and some of the grainy characteristics of the NB image are no longer present.
Processing Information:
The significance of this image is that it is a composite image of a layered NB image with
RGB abd Luminance data. The NB image was first assembled in CCDStack using two methods. 1) The first was
a Hubble Palette image with nothing selected for the luminance channel. This produced an image with greater color variation
and relative star preservation. The ratios of SII, Ha and OIII were adjusted so that the green Ha signal did not overwhelm
the image. 2) The second image was produced as noted above but also contained the Ha data under "Luminance". This
brought out the fine Ha detail, some of which was lost in bringing out the SII and OIII data in the first image (the same
ratios were used). An RGB and Luminance image were then layered onto the NB image in Photoshop
CS/3 ('normal' mode with varied 'opacity'). Finally the image was further processed in Photoshop CS/3 (curves
and levels, shadows/highlights, and high pass filtering).
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