Pleiades

Date Captured:

November 3, Home (Bortle 7)

 

EQUIPMENT

Optics: William Optics 61ii doublet refractor @ 368mm FL

William Optics adjustable field flattener

 

Camera: ZWO 533mc Pro (OSC) @ gain 390

 

Filters:

- 2" Optolong L-Enhance using filter drawer

 

Mount:

- iOptron GEM 28

 

Guiding:

- ZWO 120mm mini (red filter)

- William Optics 32mm f/3.75 UniGuide Guidescope

- ZWO ASI Air Pro

- Used previous calibration

- Dither: 2 pixels, every 2 frames

 

Acquisition:

- ZWO ASI Air Pro (Plan Mode)

 

IMAGE CALIBRATION (PixInsight)

 

Weighted Batch Preprocessing

- Lights, Darks, Flat Darks, Bias

- Cosmetic Correction

- Stats

- (109) 180 second subs

- Normalize Scale Gradient Script to nomalize background of images

 

NON LINEAR PROCESSING (PixInsight)

1. Dynamic Background Extraction (2 times)

2. Color Calibration

3. Background Neutralization

4. Linear Noise Reduction using MultiscaleLinearTransform

5. Another Linear Noise Reduction using MultiscaleLinearTransform

6. Photometric Color Calibration

 

LINEAR PROCESSING (PixInsight)

1. Easy Soft Stretch script

2. Dynamic Crop

2. SCNR on the G channel

3. Created a Star Mask to protect the stars from processing

4. Created Range mask to hide the nebula

5. Ran HDRMultiscaleLinearTransform to enhance nebula's darker regions

6. Ran a slightest of "S" curve, 4 times, using CurvesTransformation to darken background and enhance nebula

7. LocalHistogramEqualization @ 25 for contrast on nebula

8. LocalHistogramEqualization @ 25 to further contrast nebula

9. MultiscaleLinearTransform to sharpen detail in the nebula

10. Increased saturation of the blue channel ever sl slightly using Curves

11. Increased saturation of the image ever slightly using Color Saturation

12. Made image ready for the web using ICCProfileTransformation

 

Done