Date: May 6, 2010 10:45PM PDT

Location: Victoria Centre Observatory, Observatory Hill, Victoria, BC, Canada

M3 is a globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici. This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, and is made up of around 500,000 stars, and is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years away from Earth. It is estimated to be 8 billion years old.

Equipment: 14" Meade LX-200 SCT & Hyperstar f/2 optic; QSI 583c colour CCD camera; Paramount ME equatorial mount, guided with SBIG ST2000XM (earlier) and Orion autoguider (later).

Image parameters: 9x1 minute exposures; 1x1 bin; one shot colour. 10x1 minute dark frames; 7°C ambient temperature; CCD temperature -20°C

Processing:
ImagesPlus 3.82 x64 - Auto Image Set Processing for Generic RGB CCD; calibrate using dark frames. Digital Development - aggressive contrast stretch applied; modest Adaptive Unsharp Mask applied.
ACDSee Pro 3: crop, reduce colour depth from 48 bit to 24 bit; dodge processing artifacts; reduce size; save as jpg.


The stars are egg-shaped in this image, caused by a shift in focus and mirror flop.