M67

(Image will appear best on screens with a horizontal pixel resolution of at least 1280 pixels or more).

Image Details:

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    • Instrument: Planewave Instruments CDK 12.5 @ f/8 (2544mm focal length)
    • Mount: Paramount MX by Software Bisque
    • Image Scale:  1.75 arc-seconds/pixel after processing
    • Camera: SBIG STL-11000M CCD camera with AO-L Adaptive Optics
    • Filters:  Astrodon I-Series LRGB using integrated STL filter carousel
      Exposure: Luminance: 13 x 3 minutes binned 1 x 1
                        Red:  6 x 3 minutes binned 1 x 1
    •                   Green: 6 x 3 minutes binned 1 x 1
    •                   Blue:  6 x 3 minutes binned 1 x 1
    •                   Total equivalent unbinned exposure time of 2.45 hours

      Capture Software: Maxim DL/CCD
      Processing Software and Steps, in order:
      PixInsight:  Calibration, Image Alignment and Integratiion, Stacking, DBE, Color Calibration, Histogram adjustments, HDR Wavelets, ACDNR,  Saturation Boost with Curves (all done on RGB master file, then all steps repeated except color steps on LUM master file separately), SCNR, LRGB combine, Dynamic Crop.

      Adobe Photoshop CS2 on master LRGB combined file:  Levels, Curves tweaking, Gradient X-Terminator, Layers with Color Range tool to select zonal areas of image to selectively sharpen galaxy structure or Gaussian Blur color  background noise, Color Noise tool for final color noise reduction, in different zones of the image, again working in Layers. 

      Location:  Little Rock, AR., El. 300ft
      Capture Dates: March 18-19th, 2013

Wade Van Arsdale
Little Rock, AR., USA
August 20th, 2013