M27 Bi-Color Narrowband (Sept. & Oct. 2013)

 

Full resolution image here.

M27 again.  Early in the summer I took some OIII of this object, but the frames had a guiding error.  They looked cool, though, so I've wanted to come back for more.  Also, I observed M27 from Bear Lake, Utah, this summer through my SV80ED.  It was stunning, a big cotton ball in the sky.  Too bad the imaging had to wait until late September, when M27 is only available for a few hours from my backyard.

This is a bi-color image, which in this case means that I concocted a synthetic green channel out of the OIII (80%) and Ha (20%) frames.  I opted to show OIII in blue rather than green (OIII is more green than blue) because red and blue look nicer to me than red and green.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha+NII:13x1200"; OIII:9x1200"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik Ha+NII & OIII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX