Melotte 15 in SHO Palette (EasyQuest)

Melotte 15 in SHO Palette

Comments

For this Project, it is one of my biggest project ever and is the most time I put into one area of the sky, Melotte 15 in SHO palette. I started this project in the end of September but did not finished until the beginning of November. I cherry picked the best frames from each channel. The original goal was 18 hours per channel but the extra clear skies and moonless at that, in November, put it about 24 hours per channel with 26 hours on SII. This was by far the cleanest and least noisest image I have ever taken with very little noise reduction. This project helped my understand the 294mm Pro a lot more and how it works. Enjoy the final image~

Moon Phase, Location, and Date

Moon Phase in September: 94%, 73%, 46%
Moon Phase in October: 6%, 21%, 32%, 83%, 90%, 96%, 99%, 100%, 99%, 97%, 93%, 31%
Moon Phase in November: 0%, 1%, 4%, 10%, 18%
Murfreesboro, TN (Bortle 6)
September 23, 26, 29 2021
October 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 31
November 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2021

Equipment

Telescope/Lens: William optics Fluorostar 156 (1228 mm at f/7.8 )
Flattener/Reducer: William Optics Flattener 68III (1.0x Native focal length)
Auto Focuser: ZWO EAF Electronic Automatic Focuser
Filter: Chroma 31mm SII 3nm Telescope Filter - Unmounted
Filter: Chroma 31mm HA 3nm Telescope Filter - Unmounted
Filter: Chroma 31mm OIII 3nm Telescope Filter - Unmounted
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW (8 x 31mm/1.25″)
Mount: iOptron CEM120
Tri-Pier: iOptron Tri-Pier with 8036-120 Adapter (Stop gap Tri-pier until iOptron Tri-Pier 360 for CEM120 Mount comes in)
Off-Axis Guider: ZWO OAG
Guider: ZWO ASI120MM-MINI
Dew Heater Controller: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Micro (Clean up Cables)
Dew Heater: AstroStrap Dew Heater for 7" Telescopes
Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro
Polar Alignment: QHYCCD Polemaster (Precise polar alignment)
Intel NUC (For imaging, dither, auto guiding, plate solve, Pegasus Astro Software Control) (Replaced laptop to clean up cables)

Software

PHD2 (For Auto Guiding)
QHYCCD PoleMaster Software (Polar Alignment)
Astrophotography Tool (APT) (For Dither, plate solve, mount control)
EQMOD (Remove Hand Controller and allow pulse guiding)
Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox (Control the Pocket Powerbox Micro)
Deep Sky Stacker (Stacking Frames)
Photoshop (Processing)
PixInsight (Processing)

Acquisition

Temperature: -15°C on all calibration frames as well as light frames
Exposure per Filter: 74 hrs
SII - 312 X 300s (26 hrs)
HA - 288 x 300s (24 hrs)
OIII - 288 x 300s (24 hrs)
Dark Flats for SII, HA, and OIII, 60, 100, and 80 respectively (ZWO ASI 294mm Pro does not like Bias frames)
Flats for SII, HA, and OII are 80, 100, and 120 respectively (Flats are super short for better calibration)
30 Darks (Used Master Dark file)
Gain: 120 (Unity Gain)
Bin: 2x2 (Full resolution if left 1x1 which is the IMX492 sensor.)
Offset: Left Default

Processing in Photoshop and PixInsight

Stacked in DSS
Edited in Photoshop
RC-Astro GradientXTerminator
RC-Astro StarXTerminator in Photoshop
Adjusted levels
Adjusted Curves
Selective Curves Adjustment
Color Correction
Blacks Correction
Saturation Balance
Very little Noise Reduction
Cropped
Morphological Transformation in PixInsight for Star reduction
Linear Dodge to add stars back on
Star color correction

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape
Artificial satellite

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
PixInsight job	OUVENMZULTEZ4FGTPSFILA4W20XXHD6N
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h33m21s.733
RA (top/left)	02h36m59s.999
RA (top/right)	02h29m34s.427
RA (bottom/right)	02h29m48s.100
RA (bottom/left)	02h37m04s.978

Dec (center)	+61°26′15″.34
Dec (top/left)	+61°44′27″.41
Dec (top/right)	+61°42′45″.65
Dec (bottom/right)	+61°07′42″.64
Dec (bottom/left)	+61°09′22″.15

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