NGC 3628 w/full moon

[Jim McMillan]

Hi guys,

I'm posting this for one reason. This was imaged last night with the full moon only about 20 degrees away. I know a lot of us image under less than ideal conditions from the 'burbs and/or city with really bright skys. Well, if you pick a relatively bright target and take enough exposures (5.5 hrs in this case), you can get fairly decent results. It's awfully difficult to do color under these conditions, so just stick with B&W. For reference, the background level for each exposure is about 9800 adu with a 10" LX200 OTA and ST8e (not a particularly sensitive camera). It would definitely benefit from more exposures, but it started snowing this afternoon, so I guess that's not likely to happen any time soon. (Star spikes added w/software.)

Anyway, don't let mediocre conditions or a bright moon keep you from imaging!

[edit 3/1/11] - I added 6 more hours of data last night. It significantly improves the SNR in the dimmer areas and allows a bit more aggressive processing in the bright areas. "Significant improvement" is probably in the eye of the beholder ;~) My experience is going much beyond this amount (11.5 hrs) adds very little to my eye. The black point has been set on a laptop, so no guarantees it's right.


Jim