Friday, Oct 25, 2024

I recently captured an image of the North America (NGC 7000) and Pelican (IC 5070) Nebulae using my dual RedCat 51 setup with the ASI 2600MM Pro and ASI 2600MC Pro cameras. I took 65 exposures of 300 seconds each for Ha, OIII, and SII, along with another 65*300" for RGB to capture the stars. This is a classic summer target, and each year I revisit it to test my progress. This year, I experimented with a dynamic formula for blending the three narrowband channels and took a more aggressive approach to stretching the data, aiming for bolder colors. For the stars, I tried a new stretching script, which delivered excellent RGB stars to merge with the narrowband image. While I’m not usually a fan of narrowband imaging or aggressive processing, I feel that this approach works well for this target. Clear skies, Simone