By Rick Bellows | 2023-09-09
On 09/10/2023 09:00 pm by Catherine Hyde| Cambria, CA USA
NGC 7380, the Wizard Nebula. I tried this once or twice years ago and utterly gave up and accepted that it was beyond me at the time. So this is a tough one and I'm pleased that I got it. It was clear all night last night. Kind of a miracle in the fog belt. I imaged for a full nine hours, 8:30 pm to 5:30 am. Ultimately I had to throw away a few at the beginning and end for being too light, and a couple more for guiding issues. Still, it was a great night, and this is about 7 1/2 hours of total exposure time.
Takahashi 106 refractor, Nikon D810A DSLR, Astro-Physics Mac2 tracking mount.
I processed the stars and the nebulosity separately in Pixinsight and PhotoShop to bring out the most detail in the nebula without overexposing and bloating the stars.