Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 1.28 arcsec / pixel.  Zoomify image scale is 1.28 to 2.56 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

3/24/2010 & 3/25/2010 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.

Exposure

RGB    60 min (4 x 5 min each, bin 2x2)

Software

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator.

• eXcalibrator for (b-v), (v-r) color calibration, using 4 stars from the NOMAD1 database.

• PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair hot/cold pixels and column defects.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures, RGB color.

• PhotoShop for non-linear stretching.

North is to the top.
VY UMA is a Carbon star with a magnitude range of 6.0 to 6.6 in an irregular period

A carbon star is a late type giant star similar to a red giant (or occasionally to a red dwarf) whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen; the two elements combine in the upper layers of the star, forming carbon monoxide, which consumes all the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving carbon atoms free to form other carbon compounds, giving the star a "sooty" atmosphere and a strikingly red appearance.

Source: Wikipedia