Astrophotography by Keith B. Quattrocchi


NGC 6888
NGC 6888 (The Crescent Nebula) in Cygnus
Narrow Band Image

Copyright 2021
Keith B Quattrocchi and Bray Falls

Image Acquisition Information  
                    
Telescope: 16" RCOS Richey Chretien Telescope (ion milled at f/9) 
Camera: ZWO Full Frame Back Illuminated CMOS ASI 6200 MM
Guiding: Starlight Xpress AO with UltraStar Autoguiding Camera (AO control using maxim DL software).
Filters: Astrodon LRBG, H-alpha, S-II and OIII Filters
Acquisition Programs: NINA, The SkyX, PHD2, PWI4
Processing Programs: PixInsight, RC Astro, CCDStack, Photoshop CS4
Date: Data processed on September 1, 2021.  Data acquisition: August of 2021                            
Time:  8 hours (10 minute exposures) for each of Ha, SII, OIII for a total of 24 hours.  LRGB starfield also obtained.                              

Image Information:  NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, located about 5,000 light-years away. It is an emission nebula, meaning it glows and produces its own light, formed by the interaction of a massive, dying Wolf-Rayet star with the gas it ejects. This stellar wind has created a complex shell of gas, and the collision has also generated shock waves that heat the gas to millions of degrees.  

Processing Information  This Ha/SII/OIII images were obtained using  AstroDon filters.  The Ha/S-II/OIII images were batch processed (calibrated, registered, normalized and integrated) in PixInsignt.   Further stretching, high pass filtering and background smoothing was performed with Adobe Photoshop CS/4 and PixInsight.