ASTROPIXELSEATONS HILL OBSERVATORY
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FROM THE OBSERVATORY · 02-Dec-2016

The Orion Nebula

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The Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, visible to the naked eye. It is seen as the fuzzy middle star in the sword of Orion. The nebula is 1344 light years away and is one of the closest star forming regions to Earth.
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Notes from the session

Image:
19x 240s Luminance bin1x1 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
16x 60s Luminance bin1x1 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
9x 120s Red bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
7x 30s Red bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
8x 120s Green bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
10x 30s Green bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
9x 120s Blue bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
8x 30s Blue bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias



Total exposure 2 hours 36 minutes.

Hardware:

Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120
SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
Astronomik Typ 2c LRGB
Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II



Location:
Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)



Software:
Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
Captured with AstroArt 6
Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
FocusLock live focusing
CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, combine RGB.
Photoshop CC: Curves, high pass filter, merge L+RGB, minimum filter, color adjustment, saturation.