IC5146

Emission Nebula in Cygnus

Uploaded 8/18/2001

This complex nebula in Cygnus is a combination of dust, gas around a beautiful open cluster CR470, and the nebulosity which is known more commonly as IC5146, is also Sharpless 125. This image was taken under extremely poor conditions. The sky was hazy, and for over 3/4 the exposures the object was totally obscured by dense clouds. After 40 minutes, I gave up, the clouds won. The resulting image was underexposed, very noisy, and the stars huge and puffy from very poor seeing. To produce the above image, I first deconvolved the poor seeing with Maxims Maximum Entropy Deconvolution. This is the only deconvolution method I've found that does not increase noise in low signal to noise ratio images. Next, a mild gamma curve was applied to bring out the nebulosity and dark lanes. Finally, a special technique was used using the new Photoshop 6 reduce some of the noise.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  L = 40m
Filters:  
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing 4/10, Transparency 1/10
Outside Temperature:  22 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop

 

 

 
 


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