I have some good Hα data from the PacMan from a year ago, but the RGB I had was from 2012 and was lousy. So I decided to get some RGB to try and improve my HαRRGB image. I imaged up to the meridian with things behaving pretty well, then did a meridian flip, refocused, and went to bed. As happened the night before, a couple of hours post-flip something went wrong with the guiding/tracking so I didn't get as much data as hoped for. Also, I had intended to use 600 s subs, but the background was just too bright for that so I pulled back to 300 s. However, this RGB is a lot better than the 2012 result, and produced a better HαRRGB image. This is the combination of 10 Sep 2014 Hα with 14 Oct 2015 RGB. The colors are a compromise between trying to prevent the stars from being too blue or too yellow and getting too much blue in the nebula.

In the revision, I used more of the RGB for the stars and pulled back a bit on brightening the nebula; I also desaturated a bit more. I think I like the revision a little bit better.

Details for the RGB:

Date: 14 Oct 2015

Subject: NGC 281, PacMan Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: Baader Fringe Killer

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: Orion ST-80 + DSI Ic + PHD 2.5.0.1 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc, no chiller CCD 15 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 4.0.3, no dither

Exposure: 48x300 s

Stacking: Neb 4, bad pixel map, bias included, 33 flats, match histograms, deBayer & square, trans+rot align, DSS 2x drizzle 1.75 average κ-σ stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.4.305 Crop; Wipe 75%; Develop 82.67%; HDR optimize; Color: scientific, 221%; Deconvolute 5.0 pix; Life:moderate; Track 7.0 pix, Smoothness 88%; Magic: shrink 2 pixels. CS6 Astronomy Tools deep space noise reduction; increase star color; make stars smaller; liquify/pucker; levels & curves. Nebulosity 4.0.3 aligned & scaled Hα & RGB, converted back to tiff. Photoshop processed the heck out of this to combine Hα & RGB and adjust colors.