ShahGazer Rambling about Astrophotography, Coding and Clouds

The Wishing Well Cluster, NGC 3532. This is one of my  favorite  open clusters. The view through my 10 inch Dob was simply awesome. The field of view simply littered with faint stars. In a way, it appears more like a beehive cluster! The photo was taken on 10th Feb 2012, the same date as when I took the Eta Carinae nebula . Telescope: SW 120ED CCD: QHY9 Mono w FW Mount: EQ6 with EQMOD LRGB: 900:300:300:300 seconds

It's been almost a year since taking my first light with a CCD from my observatory. Back then, Eta Carina was my target. So, on the 10th of Feb, with the sky clearing up, I went down the memory lane and took another set of image of the nebula. The moon was high up in the sky, so the contrast wasn't great. The probably need to use shorter focal length to get a better view. This nebula is enormous! Telescope: SW 120ED CCD: QHY9 Mono w FW Mount: EQ6 with EQMOD LRGB: 900:300:300:300 seconds

M7, also known as Ptolemy Cluster, tucked nicely at the tail of the Scorpion. With the Milky Way center nearby, it was tempting to give it a try, even though it was right in the middle of the city glow. The final image was rather pleasing for me. I managed to capture some background stars as well. Stretched quiet a lot in Photoshop especially on the grey curve. Camera: QHY9 Mono with QHY Filter wheel (RGB) Telescope: SW Equinox 120ED Mount: EQ6 Pro with EQMOD Guiding: Orion 80mm and QHY5 Imaging Software: Maxim DL Processing Software: Maxim DL and PS3 Exposures: L: 6 x 100sec, R: 3 x 60sec, G: 3 x 60sec, B: 3 x 60sec Calibration: Old Flats (per color) and Darks Dither : 2 pixel per sub

NGC 2467, an interesting nebula in Puppis. This image was captured last night when the moon was about 30 degrees away. The sky was pretty hazy during the time. And unfortunately my focus was slightly off. I wonder what went wrong with the focus because I already did a new v-curve set in FocusMax the night before. So I had to binned the final image. Combining LRGB was done in Maxim DL, while the final Levels and curves via PS CS3. Camera: QHY9 Mono with QHY Filter wheel (RGB) Telescope: SW Equinox 120ED Mount: EQ6 Pro with EQMOD Guiding: Orion 80mm and QHY5 Imaging Software: Maxim DL Processing Software: Maxim DL and PS3 Exposures: L: 6 x 100sec, R: 3 x 60sec, G: 3 x 60sec, B: 3 x 60sec Calibration: Old Flats (per color) and Darks Dither : 2 pixel per sub

I was following almost step-by-step of processing LRGB images from the Starizona - Guide to ccd imaging , and happily managed to extract some good data from my previous Eta Carina RGB data sets. Combined with the Luminance data, I used R(3 min), G(3 min), B(3 min). The combined method is Median for RGB and Sigma Clip for Luminance. The SNR seems better.