NGC 6188 in Ara - Mark II

NGC 6188 in Ara - Mark II

This is my second attempt at this beautiful object, and, I'm still not happy with it, but, it is a marked improvement from the first attempt several years ago. I finished capturing this as the sky started to turn blue at dawn.

I will re-attempt this with the STL-11000M during winter when it will be at a good point in the sky in the middle of the night.

NGC 6188 is a diffuse/emission nebula.

North is left.

This composite consists of one set of images; one set of 19 images taken at ISO-800.
Each individual image was a 300 second exposure.
IRIS was used to calibrate each image (dark subtraction [median combined master dark] and flat field division [median combined master flat {lights and darks}]), to register, align, stack, and stretch.
Photoshop CS4 was used to adjust levels, curves, saturation, colour balance, local contrast, miscellaneous editing, frame and resize the final composite.

Target: NGC 6188 in Ara
Date: Saturday, March 13th, 2010
Time: First image: 04:13 AM
Time: Last image: 06:15 AM
Location: Snake Valley, VIC, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS-40D (modified: Baader UV/IR filter)
Telescope: ED127 triplet APO refractor f/7.5
Focal length: 952mm
Mount: Losmandy G-11 (Gemini)
Guiding: Meade DSI-C through Orion ED80
Exposure: 19 x 300 seconds (1 hour 35 minutes) @ ISO-800 (RAW)
Software: IRIS: Calibration, registration, stacking, stretching; Adobe Photoshop CS4: post-processing and framing