Focal Pointe Observatory
Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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Sh2-157 - The Claw Nebula

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      Click the full screen zoom button           ^
     
Click the image to Zoom and Pan              

Click here to view the image without Zoomify (2486 x 1813, 1.31 MB)

 

 

Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 2.80 to 9.74 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Losmandy G11 with Gemini L4 v1.0

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using Baader LRGB and an Astrodon Ha filter.

Acquisition Data

9/25/2012 to 10/21/2012 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot5 & CCDSoft.  Off-axis guided.

Exposure

 Lum 100 min. (20 x 5 min. bin 1x1)

RGB

195 min. (13 x 5 min. each bin 1x1)

Hα 

525 min. (35 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Click here for the color-mapped narrow band images.

Click here for the Ha filtered image.

Software

  • CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS6, PixInsight and Noel Carboni's actions.

  • eXcalibrator v3.1 for (g-r) color balancing, using 881 stars from the SDSS-DR8 database.

  • CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures and create the RGB image.

  • PixInsight for gradient removal and initial non-linear stretching.

  • PhotoShop for the LRGB combine & final touch-up.  Ha data was added to the red channel.

  • Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

North is to the right.

Sharpless 157, the Claw Nebula, is a bright emission nebula in the constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus at a distance of about 8,000 light-years. At the bottom-right is the open star cluster NGC 7510, about 9,900 light-years away.