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The Hole in the Trees Skybox | all galleries >> Deep Sky >> Diffuse Nebulae > The Great Wall
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The Great Wall

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) in Cygnus

This is the "Mexico" region of the North America Nebula. It required fifteen nights to capture enough data, because the Hole in the Trees allows only about 2.5 hours per night on northern targets like these. This was captured over two months of summer nights of mostly below average transparency.

Optics/Mount: CPC1100 with f6.3 Celestron reducer on a Milburn Wedge. Dec antibacklash set to 27/27. PEC on.
Camera: SXVR-H694
Exposure: 20.7 hours total. 22x20 min Ha, 16x20 min OIII, 24x20 min SII, all bin 1x1.
Filters: Astrodon 5nm Ha/SII, 3nm OIII
Date: 15 nights from July 11 to September 17, 2014

Imaging automation and capture: Sequence Generator Pro

Guiding Hardware: ASI120MM, Celestron off axis guider. Guiding scale 0.94 arcsec/pixel. 1 second guide exposures.
Focusing: Rigel Systems GCUSB/nStep on stock C11 focuser
Guiding Software: PHD2. Aggressiveness 80, Hysteresis 0, Minimum Move 0.7, Max RA 200, Max Dec 600. Dec set to auto/resist switching. Dithering set to Extreme with Settle < 1.2.
Guiding performance: HFR of subs about 1.2 arc seconds, RMS in PHD about 0.5 arcsecs.
Light pollution: Bortle 8 (white zone, NELM about mag 4.5)
Image scale at capture: 0.6 arcsecs/pixel = f/5.7
Scale of presentation: 1.2 arcsecs/pixel
Processing: Bad pixel mapping, darks, bias, and flats. Bad pixel maps with Nebulosity 2, stacked with Deep Sky Stacker, post-processed with Photoshop CS2.


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