Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 17.3 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

10/7/2008 to 12/6/2008 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

Green   50 min. ( 5 x 10 min. bin 1x1)

Blue     50 min. ( 5 x 10 min. bin 1x1)

Ha      450 min. (15 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

OIII    390 min. (13 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

(HaGB) + (Ha synthetic_G OIII) + RGB Stars     
 Click here for a BW Ha version

Click here for a narrow band color mapped version

Software

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

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

PhotoShop for non-linear stretching and color combine.

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 large region of red double ionized hydrogen 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.