Having missed this target last year (other than a
quick process of the 54 minutes I was able to get, without a proper flattener) I was anxious to revisit it this year. I'd just upgraded my latitude base to the sturdy William Optics version, and guiding was working pretty well all things considered, allowing me the 6 minutes required for each sub with the L-eXtreme filter.
The weather had different ideas. Other than a few brief moments, each night I tried imaging Rosette was easily the worst conditions I've ever imaged in. Very, very hazy - a lot of orange subs! I collected over 10 hours and only kept 7.5
Inspired by several other astrophotographers, I decided to add RGB stars, so I shot another hour with my L-Pro filter. This was problematic while processing because I have a small tilt somewhere in the optical chain (camera sensor, likely) and the RGB stars didn't exactly line up with the Ha/OIII stars towards the edges of the frame. It required a LOT of fussing in Photoshop, and it's still not perfect, but it's a big improvement on the L-eXtreme stars. I used the Ha layer for the luminance of the stars, and the RGB for colour.
I'm happy with this for now - it seems that 8 hours is the magic number to start getting enough time on a target in Bortle 8 with my focal ratio & filters.
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