One of the brightest planetaries in the sky, this deep southern object is only 48 arcseconds across, but blazes at 9.9 magnitude. The 17th magnitude central star was washed out by the bright object, and not seen. This object very much resembles the planet mars photographed with an amateur scope, but its GREEN. This object is about one degree due north of the famous nearby Barnards Galaxy, NGC6822.

To preserve the color and luminosity at the same time on this difficult object, a synthetic L channel was derived from the RGB data, and processed seperately. This allowed the proper use of DDP to bring out the details in the very bright core of this object.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  RGB = 20:20:36 (RGB Binned 1x1)
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing 6/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  21 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, PW Pro.