Well, I can't quite leave Halloween behind and the Wizard Nebula was featured in the Astronomy picture of the day on November 1st. It was really interesting, take a look! I hunted around on the web and found an astrophotographer's picture of it (but was too big to include, except for his information on how it photographed it. I wondered if any of the talented group on our list had photographed it or if you can see it in a scope (rather than Hubble). NGC 7380, Sh2-142 , the "Wizard Nebula", locates in constellation Cepheus about 7000 light years from Oulu, Finland. The open star cluster has a catalog number NGC 7380. It's a relatively young cluster, about 5 million years. Nebula spans some 110 light years. There is only 1h 20 min. H-a light for the object, due some technical problems. Ones again, I spend most of the night by fixing my ***** scope. Seeing was better than usually, FWHM about 2,5". I'll shoot much more H-alpha data and other NB channels, S-II and O-III later. Image is very noisy due the short exposure time. Technical details: processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Levels and curves in PS CS3. Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5 Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel Exposures H-alpha 4x1200s, binned 1x1 [cid:image005.png@01CC995C.3C1FA6D0]<http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=6953966401086641771&widgetType=HTML&widgetId=HTML1&action=editWidget§ionId=sidebar>