M52 & NGC 7635

It was halloween weekend with a national holiday on the first of November. Three nights for astrophotography on the horizon and i was eager to test all those technics i learned.

Couldn't be more disapointed because clouds, rain and wind where calling the shots around here. For professional reasons i can't image during the week, so i'm at the mercy of weather conditions on weekends.

To my surprise the sky's cleared on the last night and it was photon happy hour. I set course to the Messier  52 star cluster and Bubble nebula in the Cassiopeia constellation. The Bubble is an emission nebula, a Hα region, wich an unmodified DSLR has difficulties capturing due to the stock UV/IF filter.  I'm planning to do a Hα project just to see how far my unmodified camera can go.

For this picture i could go so far as 3 hour total exposure before clouds filled the sky once again.

Image Data: Messier 52 Open Star Cluster & NGC 7635 Bubble Nebula

Lens/Scope: Sky-Watcher 80mm

Focal Length: 400mm

F/Stop: f/5

Exposure: Stack of 90 120-second exposures (3 hour total exposure)

Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro SynScan GoTo (CdC & EQMOD Control)

Guiding: None

Camera: Unmodified Canon 500D (Digital Rebel T1i)

Mode: Raw

ISO: 800

White Balance: Custom, set on sky background

In-Camera Noise Reduction: Off

Filter: None

Date: November 01, 2010

Start Time: 00:30

Location: Beja, Portugal

Calibration: 50 Darks. 50 Flats. 50 Dark Flats.

Processing: Calibrated, aligned and stacked in DSS. Levels, curves, cropped, resampled in Photoshop. GradientXTerminator. Carboni Tools.