NGC281 - The Pac Man Nebula
Description: NGC281, the Pac Man Nebula, in the constellation of Cassiopeia. This image was taken on July 19, 2009 from Table Mountain Star Party in Washington state.
This image was taken with my QHY8PRO camera with MaximDL software. This is a new setup for me and I did not frame the object properly. MaximDL has a feature that displays crosshairs in the image for centering. I typically use this feature for framing to get exactly the field that I want. The issue with the QHY8PRO is that, because of the driver, it includes a fairly large area around the active pixels. This area is substantially larger on the right side of the frame. So the object was centered in the raw exposures, but then when I cropped the extra pixels, it turned out to be too far to the right. I'll have to learn to account for this until a fixed driver is available for the QHY8PRO...
Equipment: The image was taken with an 8" Celestron C8 telescope on a Celestron CGE mount with a Hyperstar 3 lens. The camera was a QHY8PRO. The exposures were guided with Astro-Tech AT66ED refractor and Meade DSI Pro piggyback mounted on the C8, using PHD guiding software. Focus was done automatically with FocusMax and a MicroTouch focus motor on a FeatherTouch SCT focuser.
Exposures: 30x120 seconds 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.
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