M97 The Owl Nebula
Description: M101, the Owl Nebula, is located in the constellation of Ursa Major. This image was taken on July 5, 2008 at the Golden State Star Party near Adin in northeastern California. This was the last night of GSSP and it was cloudy all day. Many attendees left throughout the day. As darkness settled in, however, the skies started to clear. Ursa Major was located in an area of the sky that cleared fairly early. I don't see a whole lot of images of M97, so I thought it would be a good first target for the night.
Equipment: The image was taken with an 8" Meade LX200ACF telescope on a Celestron CGE mount. The camera was an SBIG ST10XME with an Astro-Physics .67 Telecompressor and Astrodon filters. The guide scope and camera were an Orion ED-80 refractor with an SBIG remote guide head attached to the ST10. Focusing was done with an Optec TCF-S focuser with temperature compensation turned off.
Exposures: 23x120 seconds luminance binned 1x1; 15x300 seconds red, 14x120 seconds green & 15x120 seconds blue exposures binned 2x2.
Processing: Bias, dark & flat calibration, image registration & color registration were done in Maxim/DL. Curves, levels, LRGB combination, zone sharpening & noise reduction were done in Photoshop CS2. Gradient processing was done with GradientXTerminator.
Click on image for full resolution.