The Dome IC 1795

Date of image 16/08/2016

The heart nebula. Processed using DSS. 

Hardware details: Camera: Canon 600D (astro modded). Telescope: SW Evostar 120 with Baader UHC-S filter. Mount: AZ-EQ6 guided using a ST80 synguider. Image details: Lights: 85 x 3min at ISO 800, Darks: 50 x 3min 0 sec at ISO 800 (from dark library), Lights and darks separated by 30 sec intervals. Flats: 100 x 1/1250s (taken from cloudy sky) at ISO 800, Bias: 50 x 1/4000 at ISO 100.

The image is a bit washed out in the corners, the moon was full which didn't help things.

The weather was excellent - no clouds, continuous shooting all night. 

Processing was done in DSS, I increased the saturation by 30% and manually aligned the colours. I reduced the vignetting in the corners by using flats taken from distant cloud cover, this worked but I nudged the camera and the dust bunny in the bottom left was left un corrected in this image.

I will place a small shim in the focuser to try and correct the tilt in the focuser, hopefully this will correct the one corner that shows elongated stars.

I like the small details in the frame, such as the intricate texture of the H alpha and the small open cluster of stars in the bottom left.