Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Cetus (Cet)  ·  Contains:  NGC 246  ·  NGC 255
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NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012, David Dearden
NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012
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NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012

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Description

Found the Skull Nebula by aligning the Telrad using 3 brighter surrounding stars, then I saw it in the guide scope at abou 2 s exposures; it's not as bright as the Ring Nebula, but is still pretty bright. Chiller at 1.5 A 7.0 V, -2 °C. I've got a nasty dust bunny or something right next to NGC 255, and I have a lot of coma. I'm using the 0.5x focal reducer with the spacer so it is at about the proper distance now. Obviously I need to determine the correct distance from the coma corrector to use when I'm using the focal reducer, because what I have right now is nasty. The chiller current quit midway through the run.

Reprocessed with StarTools. Used Magic & Repair to "fix" the stars, Life:Moderate with saturation boost.

Date: 17 Oct 2012

Subject: NGC 246 (Skull Nebula) & NGC 255

Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific coma corrector+0.5x Antares telereducer spaced properly

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD 1.13.6

Camera: DSI IIc (1.5 A, 7.0 V for half the run, T = -2 to 3 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.2, high dither

Exposure: 57/60 x 300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, darks & flats, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack

Processing: Digital development with 1 level sharpening, power stretch, Keller stretch, saturation boost, 1 layer GreyCStoration, 1 layer additional sharpening in Neb 3; CS6 Astronomy Tools deep space & space noise reduction, star color enhance background layer, Gaussian blurred layer mask of sharpened layer for nebulae, flatten, a little levels and curves, liberal use of eraser tool to fix flared, messed-up stars.

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  • NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012, David Dearden
    Original
  • Final
    NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012, David Dearden
    B

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NGC 246, Skull Nebula, 17 Oct 2012, David Dearden