The sky parted on Sunday, 11 September and I finally managed - after a very long absence - to grab 1 hour of data. Well, 2 hours since I used both scopes!
NGC6520 and Barnard 86 ("cosmic Gecko") lie about 5,200 light years away in Sagittarius. The cloud of dust most likely gave birth to the giant blue stars of NGC6520.
This is my first attempt at this type of object. More data would obviously have been better but living in Sydney we are all currently beggars. I was pleased to be able to get anything with only 20 min each of colour in RGB. I would have been lost in processing were it not for the generous help of Mark Adams.
details:
TEC180/Moravian G2-8300/Astronomik CLS filter: Luminance: 12 x 5 min (.88 arc-sec)
TEC140/SX Trius/Baader RGB: R G B 4 x 5 min each colour (.95 arc-sec)
Captured simultaneously running two versions of CCDSoft/Focusmax
Processed in CCDStack, Photoshop CS-5, and a bit in PixInSight. Final image resolution = .88 arc-sec
Full Size:
http://www.pbase.com/prejto/image/157573957
Crop:
http://www.pbase.com/image/157573964
The images look pretty decent on two of my monitors but are unsatisfactory on my ipad. The ipad seems to struggle with darker shades so the Gecko is most unsatisfactory.
Thanks for viewing!
Peter