M81 & M82 - Bode's Nebula & The Cigar Galaxy
Description: M81 & M82, Bode's Nebula and The Cigar Galaxy respectively, are located in the constellation of Ursa Major. This image was taken on February 14, 2009 from my home in Snohomish, Washington.
This is a first light test of my new Hyperstar lens on my C14. This lens from Starizona allows me to image with my 14" SCT at F/1.95. This gives me focal length of 682mm (measures by astrometry.) The system is fast enough that typical subexposures can be 30 seconds or less.
Equipment: The image was taken with a 14" Celestron C14 telescope on a Celestron CGE mount. The camera was an SBIG ST10XME with Astrodon filters. The exposures were unguided. Focus was done manually through the stock C14 focuser using CCDInspector's FWHM Monitor to aid in evaluating critical focus.
Exposures: 30x30 seconds each luminance, red, green and blue exposures binned 1x1.
Processing: Image capture was done with Maxim/DL 5. Calibration, registration, noise reduction and stacking were done in CCDStack. Curves, levels and zone processing were done in Photoshop CS2. Gradient processing was done with GradientXTerminator.
Click on image for full resolution.