HCG 61, the "Box"

[DaveS]

As posted in the competition thread, this is just barely enough data to make an image, 3 hours RGB in Bin 2 and 3 hours Luminance in Bin 1, all in 600 sec subs. Captured on the 21st (RGB) and 24th (Lum), mostly in Nautical Dark.

Stacked and RGB combination in AstroArt 8 (MPCC didn't like my data), cropped and gradient removal. Then into PI for SPCC, BlurX, NoiseX and Masked Stretch (Which did a better job than ArcSinH Stretch), then back to AstroArt for LRGB synthesis and a light Unsharp Mask.

I need new Flats, as I had to push the background down further than I would like, plus there's a swarm of brightly coloured noise just below the floor. ODK12, SX694, Baader LRGB filters. DDM 85, Maxim DL6, ASA software package.

And that's it for Galaxy Season, no more Astro DArk until the 16th July so will have to look at NB targets, Boo.