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  • This little galaxy in Cygnus is a gem packed with details. it's a little tricky with the glare from 3rd magnitude Fawaris (delta Cygni a half frame away off the lower left corner) generating curtains of flare.

    10" newtonian @ f/7

    Losmandy TITAN mount

    Orion DSMI-III Camera (Sony ICX285AL Sensor)

    Orion Blue 1.25": 20×600″(3h 20′)
Orion Green 1.25": 12×600″(2h)
Orion H-alpha 7nm 1.25": 18×600″(3h)
Orion Luminance 1.25": 109×240″(7h 16′)
Orion Red 1.25": 18×600″(3h)

    Total Integration: 18h 36′

    Pixel scale: 0.561 arcsec/pixel

    PreProcess:

    Calibration using darks & flats in MaxIm DL

    Stacking of master channels in MaxIm DL

    Processing in PixInsight:

    Cropping stack artifacts

    Channel alignment

    Additional crop

    Dynamic Background Extraction on all channels

    BlurX on Lum

    RGB combine

    Dynamic Background Extraction on RGB image to get rid of any residual gradients.

    BlurX on RGB and Ha

    ArcSinh Stretch on Ha, RGB & L

    Subtract Red continuum from Ha

    Combine LRGB

    Color adjust LRGB to taste and use curves to present a good image

    Convert Ha to RGB and Colorize to RED

    PixelMath add Ha to LRGB image using the ScreenBlend formula:

    .75*(1-(1-Ha)x(1-lrgb)) + (1-.75)x(lrgb)

    using x above because asterisks are formatting in comments

    Desaturate background

    Numerous tweaks to color and levels using Curves and Saturation through various masks isolating desired structure.

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  • Fantastic! I love seeing lesser-known targets posted.

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