The Sadr Region
Description: The Sadr region in the constellation of Cygnus. This image was taken on July 19, 2009 from Table Mountain Star Party in Washington state.
The prominent stars in Cygnus the Swan are sometimes called the Northern Cross. The star at the intersection of the cross is called Sadr. There are lots of emmision nebulae in the area. This image was taken with my new QHY8PRO camera, which is an anti-blooming, one shot color camera. With my other setup, an SBIG ST-10, I would avoid framing anything with a bright star because of blooming. So just out of curiosity, I pointed the telescope right at Sadr and took a bunch of exposures to see what would happen. This image is the result.
The strange object just to the left of the center of the image is not real. It's a reflection artifact. I have been seeing these in my Hyperstar images whenever there is a really bright object in the field. I have yet to run down the actual source of the reflection.
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: 45x120 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.
Click on image for full resolution.