Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 17.5 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

12/21/2008 to 2/3/2009  Chino Valley, AZ

Exposure

Lum     200 min (40 x 5 min, bin 1x1)

Red       60 min (12 x 5 min, bin 1x1)

Green    60 min (12 x 5 min, bin 1x1)

Blue      60 min (12 x 5 min, bin 1x1)

Exposure Details for the Moon:
The Takahashi FSQ-106ED was stopped down to F7 and a single 0.03 sec. exposure was taken with a 6nm Ha filter.

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, and Noel Carboni's actions.

CCDStack to register, normalize, data reject, combine and luminance sharpen & DDP.

PhotoShop for the color combine.

Comment

North is to the top.

This is a composite image of the Moon passing through Pleiades on 02/04/2009 at 02:37:56 UT, as seen from Chino Valley, AZ. The Moon was actually imaged at this time, and then added to an M45 image that I have been working on.

The ecliptic path passes very close to The Pleiades (M45), making Moon occulations a fairly common event. Because the Moon is so bright, it is not possible to image the moon and M45 simultaneously and show the nebula. If I try a shot like this again, I will stop the scope down to about F20. Then I should be able to image the moon with RGB filters and get come color and maybe show the Earthshine on the dark side.