M 13

[Jim McMillan]

I'm probably over-sharing again, but we just had 2 clear nights in a row after being rained on for 40 of 50 days!

This is a "one night" image. M 13 is quite bright so it doesn't need a lot of exposure time unless you're trying to show the faintest of the stars. I also don't think it benefits all that much from taking luminance images, so this is just a straight RGB. It is 11 x 10 min each R, G, B (5.5 hrs total).

Processing globular clusters creates a fair amount of opportunity for making choices:

1) How much stretching to show faint stars?
2) How much stretching on the core?
3) How much sharpening on the core?
4) How much color saturation?
5) Where to set the black point?

I tried to create a "balanced" image, not pushing anything too far (except perhaps the color saturation). Astronomy Tools for Photoshop (Elements) eliminated any color gradients and helped with the star saturation.

Of course, everything was acquired via ACP (including dawn flats). I used 100% of the images - things worked 100% perfectly.

Jim