The North American and Pelican Nebula region in Cygnus
The above image is a continuation of the mosaic project I started in August but this time in color. This is a 6 panel mosaic of the area around the North American and Pelican Nebula's taken with a 5nm Hydrogen Alpha filter, 3nm OIII filter and RGB filters to create a multichannel color image. I took the subframes during July, Aug, and Sept 13. You can see the original Ha image here. Living in a suburban area with lots of different light gradients created some unique problems in managing the light gradients through each filter especially on either side of the meridian. To deal with this I used PixInsights fantastic gradient removal routine and the PixInsight gradient merge mosaic tool to combine all the panels together. While there are a few areas on the image where the merge tool left some star artifacts, overall it did a great job. I was also able to effectively use a PixInsight script to effectively combine the Ha and OIII data while leaving broadband stars minimally affected. The image above combines 42 hours worth of exposure time in this fantastic area of the sky.
- Optics : Stellarvue SV102T Triplet Refractor @f5.6
- Mount: Mountain Instruments MI-250
- Camera: QSI 583
- Filters: Astrodon 5nm Ha, 3nmOIII, RGB
- Exposure: Ha:720min OIII:720min RGB:120min each 6 panel mosaic. Total exposure time 42 hours.
- Camera/Mount Control: Maxim DL 5.23, CCD Commander
- Processing: PixInsight 1.8 RC7
- Location: Stark Bayou Observatory, Ocean Springs, MS
- Date: Aug/Sep 13
