The North America Project OIII

20:13 15/8/2009 UTC

I started my first astroimaging project for this season last night. The conditions were superb, seeing was calm and transparency was pretty good. I had a good three hours of data and managed to pull a fine set for the final image. This image is in light of doubly ionized oxygen and will end up in blue channel in final image.

NGC/IC Object List:
NGC7000 gaseous nebula RA:20h58m50.0 Dec:+44°31m'00" BMag: 4.0, LBN 373 North American Nebula

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader OIII 8.5nm 2" | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: OIII 18x600s (3h) unbinned, dithered, CCD @ -10° f6 | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2 | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Background sky brightness (SQM): 19.76 mag/arcsec² | Image Field: 1.81 x 1.809 degrees | Image Center: Ra 20h58m58s Dec +44°01'23" | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 70°