Clouds of Perseus

This image is a collaborative project between Bob Caton, Eric Zbinden, Al Howard and myself. A 2x5 mosaic of sorts. Four FSQ106 scopes, two SBIG STL11k and two FLI Proline 16803... Some insanity and a lot of coffee (for me at least, the others I think only drink Red Bull :-).

128 hours of data. Many more hours accumulated in driving to darksites - mainly to the DARC Observatory and the Central Nevada Star Sarty - and over 7,500 miles driven, just by Al, Eric and myself.

I did the post-processing for this version, and it probably took me over 12 hours to put everything together up until the final version.

There was a "deadline" for this image, so we had to workon this one around the clock to the point at times it didn't even feel this was a hobby but a job, but still, now I think it was well worth it. Of course, the image is not perfect, but what is?

Colors are stronger than what I'd usually process them but there's a reason for that: the image will be printed on a 14 feet wide duratran-like transparency for a lightbox display at some upcoming event, so I prepped it for that by pushing saturation more than whatI usually do, and then figured I'd let it stay that way for regular"web" presentation since it was looking cool enough that way.

I must say I've enjoyed very much to work on this collaborative project, and I hope there'll be more to come!

This image was selected as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 21, 2011

[Show image details]

[Hide image details]

DATE August~September, 2011 PHOTO Exposure: Each pane: L: 12 x 15', RGB: 12x15' each Two Ha panes: 12 x 20' each Total: 128 hours Focal: 510mm, f/5

EQUIPMENT Imaging Scopes: All FSQ 106 EDX Cameras: SBIG STL11k and FLI Proline 16803 Mounts: Takahashi EM-400, AP900, Paramount ME

SITE & CONDITIONS DARC Observatory, Central Nevada Star Party Seeing: Good Transparency: Good SOFTWARE Calibration/Stacking: PixInsight Processing: PixInsight & Photoshop