Focal Pointe Observatory
Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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NGC 7380 - The Wizard Hα Filtered
 

Click the image for a 2.0 arcsec/pixel display (800 x 1200)
Click here for a 1.28 arcsec/pixel landscape display (1800 x 1200)

Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.643 arcsec / pixel.  Shown resampled to 3.73 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

7/29/2009 to 9/20/2009 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.

Exposure

Ha    570 min. (19 x 30 min. bin 1x1)


Click here for an RGB natural color version.

Click here for a narrowband color mapped version.

Software

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

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

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

PhotoShop for on-linear stretching.
Comment

North is to the top.

NGC 7380 is an open cluster, in Cepheus, discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787... William Herschel's sister. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142).

Just a bit of imagination is need to see a robed wizard, sitting in a chair, with his arms and hands out stretched. Longer viewing reveals more details, pretty much like seeing Mickey Mouse in the clouds.