Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 13.2 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

10/5/2008 to 10/13/2008 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

Ha  510 min. (17 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Software

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

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine.

PhotoShop for non-linear stretching.

Click here for the natural color version

Comment

North is to the top.

This image is dominated by Sh2-155, or The Cave Nebula, in the upper area of the frame. The faint but large region of double ionized hydrogen, surrounded by dust, is in the constellation Cepheus.

The bright area just above the bottom of the frame is the lesser often imaged HII region, Sh2-154.

At the bottom, just left of center, is the open cluster NGC 7419.