Small and bright, the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini is an excellent target for CCD skyshooters during the Full Moon. Skyfog and gradients are easily subtracted out, but color balance is a bit tricky because the sky is very blue at full moon, just like in the daytime sky. At a bright magnitude of 9.9, this 20 arcsecond planetary is very small with my f/5 system, but the seeing was near one arcsecond visually which is superb. The central star is 10.5 magnitude, forcing the use of DDP to maintain the bright and dim outer portions at the same time. The color of this nebula varies considerably with how it is taken. Film shots show either lime green or bright red, CCD shots range from greens to blues. The nebula here is a median of the CCD colors, a pale blue-green.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  LRGB = 30:10:10:16 
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW = 2.0 arcsec, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  10 C
CCD Temperature:  -10 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN, PW Pro.