Butterfly Cluster with plenty of Ha

[furgle (Adam)]

I don't usually photograph open clusters, but with that rich Ha field, I couldn't resist!


Much higher quality version here


Image:

• 38x 180s Red
• 35x 180s Green
• 33x 180s Blue
• 31x 300s 6nm Hα

Total integration 7 hours, 53 minutes.


Hardware:

• Skywatcher Black Diamond 80ED
• Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
• QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
• Astronomik 6nm Hα, deep sky RGB filters
• Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
• Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
• Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II

Location:

• Imaged on 2 nights: 31st May and 4th June 2019.
• Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)

Software:

• Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
• Captured with TheSkyX Professional
• Guiding with PHD2
• FocusLock live focusing
• PixInsight: Calibrate, align, stack, deconvolution, NBCombinator, histogram stretch, curves.

[alan meehan (Alan)]

that's a really nice field of view

[Atmos (Colin)]

Very nice Adam! That ED80 is giving out some great results

[Ross G]

A very good photo Adam, especially coming from a city location.


Great colour and I like the composition.


Ross.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

The H-alpha and the one red giant provide a lovely contrast to the exploding firework of the OB stars. Nicely done.

Just for visual appeal, we'd be tempted to make the blacks a bit blacker. Understand why you didn't though.

[Bart]

That is a lovely shot. Such a simple target beautifully presented with the background delights of the Milky Way.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Looks great Adam, lovely piece of sky there

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Adam. Lovely colours and composition.

[gregbradley]

That's really cool. Its hard to capture the beauty of these open star clusters and you have done a good job of that.

Greg.

[topheart]

Beautifully done!
Cheers,
Tim