ngc 2516 The Southern Beehive Cluster in Carina ( NGC 2516 ) - reprocessed

[MikeODay]

The Southern Beehive Cluster ( NGC 2516 ) in the constellation Carina
 

re-processed ( improved colour balance, more colour in the smaller stars and lower saturation overall ):
 

 

previous version:

 

( click on image to see larger )

Because of its similarity  M44, NGC 2516, which is only visible from lower latitudes, has become known as the Southern Beehive Cluster.

At a distance of around 1300 light years, NGC 2516 is relatively close to us and resides in the same spiral arm of the Milkyway as we do. Containing around 100 stars, with a number of them in the magnitude 5 to 6 range, NGC 2516 has an apparent magnitude of 3.8 and is visible to the naked eye as a small bright hazy patch at the edge of the Milkyway.

Details:

RA 7h 58.4m, Dec -60 deg 41.9'
Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian telescope
Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount.
Guiding: Orion Shortube 80 guidescope, Starshoot Autoguider, PHD2, guiding RA only
Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector.
Hutech IDAS D1 light pollution filter
Nikon D5300 (unmodified)
Long exposure noise reduction on
Stack of 14 x 360sec images @ ISO400
Pixinsight

[simmo39]

V nice, like the colour in the stars.

[beka]

HI Mike005,

Nice picture, just curious to know how much does the Hutech light pollution filter improve your images and how did you introduce it into the light path?

[Tzitzis]

Beautiful object nicely captured! Well done!

[MikeODay]

14 hours ago, simmo39 said:

V nice, like the colour in the stars.

 

12 hours ago, Tzitzis said:

Beautiful object nicely captured! Well done!

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

[MikeODay]

14 hours ago, beka said:

HI Mike005,

Nice picture, just curious to know how much does the Hutech light pollution filter improve your images and how did you introduce it into the light path?

Hard to say how much as I have not done a direct comparison.  I remember that I found a review on the internet somewhere that compared the performance of a number of filters - sorry but I can't remember where it was.   As for fitting it - I use a coma corrector that has a 2" filter thread on the scope side and I simply screw the filter there.  Having said that, I have stopped using it for the moment because I have been trying to capture more realistic colours and LP filters make that more difficult.