Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 1.28 to 3.20 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

9/19/2010 to 10/27/2010 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

SII                 630 min (21 x 30 min, bin 1x1)

Ha                  540 min (18 x 30 min, bin 1x1)

OIII                570 min (19 x 30 min, bin 1x1)

Lum (no filter)  330 min (22 x 15 min, bin 1x1)

RGB                360 min ( 8 x 15 min each, bin 2x2)

Click here for the RGB color version.

Click here for an Ha filtered b/w image.

Software

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS3.

• eXcalibrator for (b-v), (v-r) star color calibration, using 45 stars from the NOMAD1 database.

• PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair column defects.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject,  combining the sub exposures, RGB combine and DDP

• PhotoShop for additional non-linear stretching

• Noiseware Pro, a PhotoShop plug-in

North is ~ to the left.  This close up view of IC 1805 is rotated 110 degrees CCW.

The colors in the top image follow the spirit of the Hubble Palette. This image uses Ha, SII and OIII filters mapped to the red, green and blue channels respectively. The bottom image uses the same filter mapping with adjustments to the channel levels to create the blue and gold motif, made popular by the Hubble Imaging Team.

Sprawling across hundreds of light-years, emission nebula IC 1805 is a mix of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds. Only about 7,500 light-years away, stars were born in this region, nicknamed the Heart Nebula. Light from this and other glowing gas clouds surrounding hot, young stars comes in very narrow bands of emission characteristic of energized atoms within the clouds. The top image shows the light from sulfur atoms in red hues, with hydrogen in green, and oxygen atoms in blue.

Source: NASA APOD