First light of my new second hand CCD camera went for first Messier catalog object – Crab nebula. After over one month waiting for clear skies I was able to expose first piece of material. Through luminance filter 2 hours (24x5min) exposition was made, so first frame for luminance layering LRGB image was made.
Crab nebula (Messier 1, NGC1952) is a supernova remnant in constellation of Taurus. It corresponds to bright supernova recorded in 1054. It’s diameter is now 11 light years, and it is about 6500 light years awau from Earth. In the center of Crab nebula there is pulsar, very dense neutron star, 28-30km across with a spin rate of 30.2ms.
Two days after luminance was exposed I pointed my setup again to Crab nebula and exposed R, G and B frames. Red channel was exposed for 90 minutes. Both G and B channels were exposed for 40 minutes and with binning set to 2. After many work with layers, channels, masking, and balancing here we have my first LRGB astrophoto:
