M20 - Trifid Nebula
Location: Taken from El Dorado Hills, California (object is about 25-30 degrees above horizon at peak)
Dates: Taken over 6 nights from May 19 - June 8, 2013
Field of view: approx. 24x36 arc minutes
Plate Scale: 0.54 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures: L 4x10min Bin 1x1; R 7x20min Bin 2x2, G 6x10min Bin 2x2, B
7x20min Bin 2x2
(total exposure 400 minutes, or about 6.7 hours; certainly could use
another 2-3 hours of luminance!)
Sky condition: approx 19.5 mag/arcsec^2 (suburban Sacramento)
Equipment Information
Telescope: Meade 12" LX200R
Focuser: Clement Bellerophon 3", RoboFocus, using FocusMax software
Rotator: Optec Pyxis 3"
Guider: Astrodon MOAG, SBIG Remote Guide Head
Filters: SBIG FW-8 filter wheel with Custom Scientific LRGB (2")
Camera: SBIG STL-11000M
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount ME
Observatory: Sirius 8' dome on custom 10' square building
Location: In our backyard, and fully remote controllable via internet
Software: CCDAutoPilot - automated acquisition software
MaximDL - camera control software
TheSky 6 Pro - planetarium software
CCDStack - register, normalize, data reject, & combine software
Photoshop CS4 - image processing software
Copyright: Steve Fry