M13 - Hercules Cluster

[GordonH]

I took this last night but was only able to get just over 3 hours of data so this is 12x5 minutes each for red and green and 15x5 minutes for blue. It was taken with the FSQ106ED at f5 and Starlight Xpress SXVF H9 on a Paramount ME. Auto guiding was by a Lodestar/OAG combination with dithering.

The processing was very simple although several iterations of levels and curves were used while inverse selecting the core with feathering to avoid burning it out. No sharpening or noise reduction was used.

This was the first subject that got me into imaging 4 years ago when I took a picture with my Meade LX200 and DSI using 15 second exposures, this can be seen on the star cluster page of the image gallery of my website Imaging The Heavens - Home Page to see how far I have progressed since then.

There is a full size high resolution version at the following link

M13 - Hercules Cluster photo - Gordon Haynes photos at pbase.com

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon

[theodore]

Brilliant, very deep. Like the galaxy - gives the foreground some scale.

Theo

[red dwalf]

very nice indeed

[kris h]

Top image Gordon