NGC 6960, Western Vail

Date 04-05/09/2017. NGC6960, the Western Vail in Cygnus. Taken from near Mansonville, Southern France.

Weather: Clear skies and good seeing but moon was almost full and produced a bright sky glow. The guide scope stayed on target the entire night.

Optics and camera: Skywatcher Evostar 120 F/D=8.33 (Achromat) with a Baader UHCs filter. The camera was a IR-filter removed Canon 600D.

Settings: 52 x 3 minute lights, 50 darks from library, 50 flats taken recently and 50 bias frames. ISO 800. All images were taken with 15 second intervals to remove residual charge from the sensor.

Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 with extension pillar.

Processing: The Lights and calibrations frames were processed using Pixinsight. The final images were balanced to retain average white stars. I also used Gimp to add a selective Gaussian blur over a 5 pixel range to blend residual RGB noise and slightly increase saturation.

Comments: This is my favourite image of the trip, despite the residual background glow from the Moon and the slightly offset positioning. I will be returning to this target back in England! Great colours and lots of fine detail. I am sure more detail can be got with further exposures.