Messier 2 Globula Cluster
26-Sep-2018
55,000 light years away, Messier 2 (M2) is one of the largest known globular clusters.
Image:
- 15x 25s red
- 19x 300s red
- 12x 45s green
- 17x 300s green
- 12x 45s blue
- 17x 300s blue
Total integration 4 hours 25 minutes.
Hardware:
- Celestron 11" EdgeHD
- Celestron EdgeHD 0.7x focal reducer
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik luminance, deep sky RGB filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Starlight Xpress Active Optics
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
- Imaged on a single night, full moon, orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- FocusLock live focusing
- PixInsight: Calibrate, align, stack, crop, HDR combination, dynamic background extraction, color calibration, reduce noise, RGB combination, background neutralization, histogram stretch, HDM multiscale transform, curves.