Messier 55 Globular Cluster
13-Aug-2019
One of the few Messier objects difficult to observe in the northern hemisphere, M55 is a globular cluster 17,600 light years away, comprising of around 100,000 very old stars.
This is also the first light photo from the acquisition of a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED. As I'm still waiting for some adapters to be machined to match the included field flattener, I had to settle for a Baader MPCC II (coma corrector). I'm still pleasantly surprised with the result.
Image:
- 19x 180s Red
- 19x 180s Green
- 18x 180s Blue
Total integration 2 hours, 48 minutes.
Hardware:
- Skywatcher Esprit 120ED
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik deep sky RGB filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Celestron large format off-axis guider
- Baader MPCC II coma corrector
- Starlight Instruments Feather Touch Focuser + Posi Drive Motor
Location:
- Imaged on 18th June 2019.
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- FocusMax auto focus
- PixInsight: Calibrate, align, integrate, dynamic background extraction, RGB combination, noise reduction, photometric color calibration, deconvolution, histogram, curves, crop.