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Name: Alan Smallbone Date: 05/14/04 Object: M13
Details:
Telescope: 22 inch Cassegrain at f/8
Camera: Canon 1D Mark II
Exposure: ISO 1600, 60 sec exposure, total of 19 frames
Site location: OCA Anza site

Processing:
Images captured as raw files, converted to linear fits in ImagesPlus. All processing done in ImagesPlus including stacking, aligning, digital development, noise reduction and color correction.

Additional Thoughts: It was a learning experience, gives me motivation to keep improving.
Name: Paul Gaylord Date: 06/04/05 Object: M20
Details:
Telescope: Celestron NexStar 11GPS
Camera: Canon 10D
Exposure: 5 minutes x 35 images
Site location: Little Blair Valley, Ca., US
Any Other Pertinent Information: SCT was wedge mounted; f/6.3 with Celestron Reducer/Corrector; guiding with STV through piggy-backed scope;
focusing with iAstroPhoto on 20" iMac (inverter powered); Image Mode - Raw; ISO: 800

Processing:
ImagesPlus (on a Mac via VPC), Canon raw conversion, average dark combined (15 images), average flat combined (11 images), converted flat to greyscale, Adaptive Dark frame (value: 400, window: 11 x 11) and flat calibrated, translate and rotate aligned the 35 light frames, adaptive add combined, trimmed edges, Digital Development: Background = 387, Background Wt = 1.00, Break-Point = 4228, Type = None, R Emp.= r, G Emp.= g,
B Emp.= b Saved as tif.
Photoshop: trimmed edges, set white balance and black point, tweaked curves,
duplicated layer, median filter, cloned, and Gaussian blurred to remove stars and nebulosity, used difference layer blending and level control to get rid of noise and remaining amp glow, tweaked levels and curves again, saved as tif. ImagesPlus: split luminance off image, performed Gaussian adaptive Richardson - Lucy, 40 iterations, 5 x 5 window, noise threshold 2.0, saved as tif. Photoshop: brought the luminance tif image into Photoshop, reopened the "baseline" image. set the image mode to LAB, did a apply image on the luminance channel with the blending set to lighten, went back to RGB mode, final tweak of levels and curves, resized, went to 8-bit mode, converted to jpg..
Name: Paul Medcraft Date: 06/04/05 Object: NGC 5128 Centaurus A
Details:
Telescope: 12" LX200 GPS
Camera: Canon 10D
Exposure: 10 exposures of 45 seconds each
Site location: Golden Grove Observatory, WA, Australia
Any Other Pertinent Information: image taken using DSLRFocus software

Processing:
Converted from native Canon files to Tiff format using ImagesPlus, processed in Photoshop 7. Ten-45 second exposures combined in ImagesPlus using weighted median. Processing involved using a high pass filter and finishing off with noise filtering. There was no dark removal and the image is unguided.

Additional Thoughts:
This image was taken during heavy dew but otherwise steady seeing.
Name: David Goodin Date: 12/31/04 Object: NGC 4565
Details:
Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/10
Camera: Canon Digital Rebel
Exposure: 30 x 300 seconds
Site location: Tierra del Sol, near San Diego CA
Any Other Pertinent Information: Autoguiding through Orion 80ED with 3x Barlow and Meade LPI imager; Losmandy G11/Gemini mount; temperature: 40F

Processing:
ImagesPlus - alignment, adaptive add, dynamic digital processing (DDP); Richardson-Lucy restoration (5 cycles); Photoshop - gradient removal, crop and level adjust; NeatImage Pro for noise reduction.

Additional Thoughts:
This image was taken during heavy dew but otherwise steady seeing.
Name: Claude Hermann Date: 4/01/05 Object: M51
Details:
Telescope: Meade 10" 2120 LX3 OTA, f/6.3 focal reducer, on Losmandy G11 mount
Camera: Canon 300D, unmodified
Exposure: 72 x 300 seconds @ ISO800
Site location: Spring, TX, 20 miles north of Houston
Any Other Pertinent Information - IDAS LPR filter used to help overcome heavy light pollution. 36 300-second exposures taken each night, guided using
piggybacked Orion ED80 with 2.5x Televue Powermate, Phillips ToUCam Pro
740 and Guidedog software.

Processing:
Conversion from Canon RAW files to 16 bit Tif
files, calibration with dark frames, alignment of resulting frames, average addition, digital development, background compensation and background/contrast/stretch applied with ImagesPlus 2.5. Saturation enhancement, unsharp mask and color adjustments applied using Paint Shop Pro 8. Noise reduction with NeatImage.

Additional Thoughts: Needed a lot of exposure time to overcome the
light pollution from my backyard. I am still learning how to deal with the
blue cast that seems to come from using the LPR filter and the
associated processing. Still learning, but enjoying the challenge!.
Name: Andjelko Glivar Date: 12/15/05 Object: M42
Details:
Telescope: Celestron 9.25 inch SCT at f/6.3 (Celestron focal reducer)
Camera: Canon EOS 300D
Exposure: 5 x 5 minutes and 4 x 15 seconds at ISO 800.
Site location: Donja Stubica, Croatia.
Any Other Pertinent Information: Losmandy GM8 mount; manually guided through a Celestron Radial Guider.

Processing:
Images are dark subtracted with Black FrameNR, aligned and stacked in RegiStar. Images with 4x15 second exposure are combined with 4x5 minutes exposure to enhance central part. Final image was processed in Photoshop – crop, levels, curves, color balance and unsharp mask.
Name: George Gajdos Date: 09/10/04 Object: M42
Details:
Telescope: 12 inch Meade LX200GPS at f/7
Camera: Canon Digital Rebel
Exposure: 3 - 10 minute shots plus 2 - 3 minute shots for the core
Site location: Lodi,OH.
Any Other Pertinent Information: All shots at ISO 800.

Processing:
Photoshop: composite images, blend layers, adjust color, levels, unsharp mask.

Additional Thoughts: This image was purposely shot early in the season to avoid the cold. I am in Ohio you know.
Name: John Crilly Date: 06/24/05 Object: M13
Details:
Telescope: 12" Meade RCX400
Camera: Canon 300D unmodified
Exposure: 3 - 60 seconds each at ISO800
Site location: Wadsworth, OH.

Processing:
Aligned and median-combined with ImagesPlus; Digital Data Processing with ImagesPlus; levels adjusted and noise reduced with PhotoShop; noise reduced further with NeatImage.
Name: Rick Krejci Date: 03/13/05 Object: M81
Details:
Telescope: 8 inch Vixen VC200L @ f/6.3
Camera: Canon EOS 300D
Exposure: 23 x 5minutes @ ISO 800
Site location: Ada, MI.
Any Other Pertinent Information: AP 400GTO mount; off-axis guided with ST-402ME.

Processing:
All images captured, dark subtracted, flat-field, aligned, color combined in MaximDL. Levels and curves adjustment, unsharp masking in PhotoShop CS.
Name: Gerald WECHSELBERGER Date: 10/17/04 Object: NGC 6946 with Supernova SN2004 et
Details:
Telescope: C-14
Camera: Canon 10D
Exposure: 5 x 240 seconds at ISO 1600
Site location: Ebreichsdorf, Austria
Any Other Pertinent Information: Focal length 2690mm reduced with Lumicon Giant Guider.

Processing:
ImagePlus 1.72 used for raw-tif conversion,
calibration (dark and flat), registration and average-combine. Photoshop used for DDP, contrast and sharpening.
Name: Jeff Crilly Date: 06/12/05 Object: M8
Details:
Telescope: Meade LXD55 SNT
Camera: Canon 300D (modified-no IR block)
Exposure: 10 x 180 seconds
Site location: Fremont Peak California
Any Other Pertinent Information: Hutech H-alpha front filter and IDAS LPS filter.

Processing:
Dark Subtraction and Alignment in IRIS. Final adjustment and cropping in Photoshop CS.
Name: Nicolas Carbajales Date: 05/11/05 Object: M13
Details:
Telescope: Orion Starmax 5" f/12.1 Maksutov-Cassegrain
Camera: Canon G3 4 MP digital camera
Exposure: 3 -15 second exposures at ISO 400
Site location: Surrey BC
Any Other Pertinent Information: A 25mm ScopeTronix Plossl eyepiece was used. The picture was taken from Surrey BC under fairly light polluted skies
and no guiding was done on the photo.

Processing:
The three 15 second photos were stacked using Astrostack 2. 4 stacks were made (1 in each channel LRGB) and then combined in Astrostack to produce the colour image. ImageJ was then used to resize and sharpen the image and other final editing.

Additional Thoughts: Seeing was steady and this was the first deep sky photo taken
with my new 5" Mak.
Name: Wayne Fukunaga Date: 01/06/05 Object: M42
Details:
Telescope: C11 with f/6.3 reducer/corrector
Camera - Canon 20D
Exposure: 1x3 seconds, 1x30 seconds and 1x3 minutes, all at ISO 1600
Site location: Kailua Kona, HI
Losmandy G-11 mount with Gemini, Unguided.

Processing:
Images were corrected with dark frames and flat-fields with Stella Image 2. All additional processing done with Photoshop CS - layered, combined, Unsharp Mask applied during image alignment. Adjusted saturation, Gaussian Blur applied to final image.