ASTROPIXELSEATONS HILL OBSERVATORY
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FROM THE OBSERVATORY · 22-Jan-2016

Gum 15 / RCW 32 Hydrogen Emission Nebula

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Gum 15 / RCW 32 Hydrogen Emission Nebula
Gum 15 is a cloud of hydrogen gas 3,000 light-years from Earth. It is shaped by aggressive winds flowing from the stars within and around it.
BEHIND THE IMAGE

Notes from the session

Image:

29x 300s luminance bin2x2 + 12x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
14x 600s Ha bin2x2 + 22x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
24x 200s red bin3x3 + 22x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
20x 200s green bin3x3 + 24x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
21x 200s blue bin3x3 + 24x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias


Total exposure time: 8 hours 22 minutes.

Hardware:

Celestron EdgeHD 1100 with CGEM DX mount
Celestron 0.7x EdgeHD focal reducer
QSI 683-wsg Camera @ -15°C
Astronomik Type 2c LRGB filters
Astronomik Ha 6nm filter
Orion StarShoot Autoguider
Starlight Xpress Adaptive Optics



Location:

Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Imaging over 4 nights - average to above average seeing + waxing gibbous moon.



Software:

Captured with AstroArt 6
Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
Aladin 8.0: Planning & camera alignment.
CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, normalize, stack, curves, deconvolve luminance, combine RGB.
Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, integrate L+Ha+RGB, high pass filter, shadows/highlights, unsharp mask, shrink stars, color balance.