Observation by Kevin Gurney: An old friend with a new rig

Uploaded by

Kevin Gurney

Observer

Kevin Gurney

Observed

2026 Jul 01 - 23:55

Uploaded

2026 Aug 22 - 15:08

Objects

The North America Nebula (NGC7000)

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Constellation

Cygnus

Field centre

RA: 20^h57^m
Dec: +43°46'
Position angle: -0°39'

Field size

2°11' × 1°38'

Equipment

Celestron C8 with Hyperstar adaptor
Fornax 102 mount
ZWO ASI 1600MM camera
Baader 2 inch narrowband filters - Ha, OIII, SII
NINA, Pixinsight, Xnview

Exposure

5.25 hours of 300s subs over several nights

Location

Charente, France

Target name

North American Nebula

Title

An old friend with a new rig

About this image

The North American nebula (NGC7000) is a favourite target

for imaging. I have taken it a couple of times already, but this has

been using a small aperture refractor with short focal length in order

to cover the wide field required.

Two years ago, I reinvigorated an old Celestron C8 (my first'real'

scope) with a so-called Hyperstar lens. This converts the f10

instrument into one working at f2 with a much wider field of view. I

thought I would revisit NGC7000 to see the effect of having something

with eight times the light grasp of the refractor. I was pleased to

see much more detail resolved in the 'wall' structure (on the left)

and the dust clouds.

In processing, the colour mixing of the narrowband components (based

on the Hubble Palette) was made much easier by the recent addition of the

Narrowband Color Mapping tool in Pixinsight (PI). As usual, the

deconvolution tool - BlurXterminator - really sharpened things up, and

judicious use of Local Histogram Equalisation in PI helps display the

structures in all parts of the image to good effect.

Files associated with this observation

NGC7000_FINAL_Neb_proc1_sars_redux_B_crop_Xnview.jpg (6.4 MB)

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