Pacman NHO

[DaveS]

Well, I doubt if I'll get more data on this before the close date so I'm posting anyway.

NGC 281, the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia, in NHO pallette using my 130mm f/7 photoline triplet and 0.75x APM / Riccardi reducer, 3nm Astrodon filters and SX694 camera. [NII] and HII 12x10 min subs, [OIII] 18x10 min subs, encoder guided on ASA DDM60 mount. Capture with Maxim DL also used for plate solving processing in AstroArt 5

Each set of subs stacked with Sigma Add and only Bias calibration followed by Gradient Reduction > Adaptive Divide. After RGB synthesis with [NII] assigned to red, HII to green and [OIII] to blue the alignment borders were cropped off and another round of Gradient Reduction > Adaptive Subtract applied.

Several rounds of Histogram Stretch were applied with Gradient Reduction and White Balance in between each iteration. Finally the saturation was given a slight boost before a last round of Gradient Reduction, White Balance and Histogram Stretch.

I *still* haven't got enough data, but it seems unlikely that I will have now. If the sky miraculously clears and I manage to gather more and process it before the close data I'll update this image, else it will have to stand.

[TSRobot]

Hi. I know little of darks, flats, subs and AP talk, but thanks for the amazing picture and the time you spent on it ?