Messier 29

Target details

Messier 29 (NGC 6913) is an open star cluster in Cygnus, about 6,000 light-years away in a crowded stretch of the Milky Way near Gamma Cygni.

Interestingly as I processed my image data I noticed that the upper right of the image has some faint red nebulosity, some further research shows that it is indeed located on the edge of a large and complex nebulous region that also contains the Crescent nebula. To bring this nebulosity out in my image I would need to increase the total exposure time considerably, perhaps using a Ha filter

It belongs to the Cygnus OB1 association and is moving towards us at 28 km/s. It's thought to be about 10 million years old, since its five hottest stars are all B0 giants, and it's only about 11 light-years across. Its brightest star is magnitude 8.59, and the whole cluster may be as luminous as 160,000 Suns.

This is a target I will revisit in the future as I hadn't realised just how interesting it is.

Capture details

Data captured 16 & 17 October, 2018.

40x 2 minute exposures with Luminance filter.
25x 1 minute exposures with Red filter.
26x 1 minute exposures with Green filter.
22x 1 minute exposures with Blue filter.

Total Exposure: 2.5 hours.

Equipment details

Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 428EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II

Processing details

This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.
Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight.
Dynamic Background Extraction - To Remove Gradients. (All channels separately)
Channel Combination - To create RGB image.
Photometric Color Calibration - To colour calibrate the image.
SCNR - To neutralise green.
LRGB Combination - To create LRGB image
Deconvolution - To tighten up the stars.
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the image.
Curves Transformation - To increase contrast.
Curves Transformation - To boost saturation slightly.
Histogram Transofrmation - To clip blacks slightly.

Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.
Enhance Contrast (+17)

Export final JPEG for upload