NGC 2516 is a beautiful open cluster in the constillation of Carina.
Situated at about 1500ly and aproximately one degree in size It shines at a combined magnitude of 3.8 making for a great low power view.
I shot this through a ZS 66SD on a AP600E mount using the SXV-H9C.
Exposures were 40 x 2 minutes unguided and was taken at Magellan Observatory at Lake Bathurst.
This is my second attempt at this cluster and although I feel that the chip in my CCD is too small for a cluster of this size I hope I did a better job with It this time round.
Hi Louie,
this is a lovely, delicate cluster... great objects while the moon's around too.
Your processing is very good and the background is lovely and smooth and very even....
I think your star colours are fine in the first version, just that you could probably use a bit of curve adjustment to bring out the fainter stars that are lurking in the back ground and bring a little more vitality to the actual clusters stars.
I had a mess in PS and the cluster becomes a lot more vibrant... without making the stars overly larger than they are in your first image.
From what I'm seeing, the little 66SD does a fine job matched to the SXH9...
Thanks for the feeback Rich, much appreciated and of cause your right in that in my worry in keeping the star sizes down I lost some of the dynamics of the cluster !
