Date: July 21, 2008
Location: Victoria Centre Observatory

The Moon was 2 days past full and lit up the high haze in the sky causing severe light pollution (see the blue gradient on the right side of the image). Despite this, I wanted to see what kind of images my new Borg f/4 Astrograph would deliver. This photo is a cropped version of the original, so a large field-of-view is possible with this f/4 Astrograph. I did not have a perfect polar alignment with my HEQ5 Pro, so some slight star trailing is visible when the image is closely examined.

This setup is very easy to use for astrophotography, and I expect to make good use of it, especially while the steady summer weather is with us.

Details:
Optics: Hutech modified Canon XTi mounted prime focus on a Borg 101ED f/4 Astrograph, HEQ5 Pro EQ mount
Exposures: 28 images at 1 minute, ISO 800
Processing:
ImagesPlus 3.0: digital development of Canon Raw to FITS; dark & flat frames applied; auto grading & alignment; Average Combine used for stacking; moderate Digital Development applied (BP 800, BG 72); modest star size reduction; crop & save as 48 bit TIF.
Corel PhotoPaint X3: Saturation and contrast increase
ACDSee Pro 2: Further contrast stretch; crop; 48 bit to 24 bit RGB, convert to jpg.