M8, Lagoon Nebula, UHC-S, 14 Aug 2013 (David Dearden)

M8, Lagoon Nebula, UHC-S, 14 Aug 2013

This image is from some really poor data. Initially I was not even going to process these subs, but I saw a tutorial on StarTools processing (coincidentally, on M8!) and decided to try out a few of the things I learned, particularly with regard to changes in workflow.

M8 is easy to find with the Telrad from the teapot of Sagittarius. Conditions tonight are marginal at best because there is a huge amount of haze, some from clouds and some from nearby fires. The first quarter moon is also only about 30° away. I initially tried with the focal reducer on a 1.5" nosepiece, but that produced obvious, severe coma (I had hoped I could get away with more reduction on the AT8IN, but I cannot). The chiller is working extremely well: 2.25 A, 9 °C. Reduced exposures to 240 s from the usual 300, but I'm afraid the haze is going to kill me tonight (and it did--it was a huge problem!).

Date: 14 Aug 2013

Subject: M8, Lagoon Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + Antares 0.5x focal reducer (on 1” nosepiece)

Filter: Baader UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.2

Camera: DSI IIc (chiller at 2.25 A, T = 0.5-8 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.7, no dither

Exposure: 15x240 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.246 Crop; Wipe:Color & Brightness, Drop Off 50%, Corner 150%, Aggr 90%; AutoDev w/ ROI, IFD 2.4 pix, Outside ROI 89%; Deconvolute 3.0 pix; HDR:Reveal Core; Sharpen; Life: Moderate: Track; HDR:Equalize. CS6+Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Shrink stars (twice); AstroFrame.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7339744
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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