Date/Time
Start: Sep 17 2012 9:11PM
Finish: 11:01PM

Location: Cowichan River Park, meadow between Stolz Pool campsite & river, between Duncan and Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Observers: none

Tonight, my mission is to photograph an area north of Deneb in the Cygnus-Cepheus portion of the Milky Way, where there is a large dark nebula (Le Gentil 3) and some emission nebulae as well, most notably IC 1396 in Cepheus and North America (NGC 7000) and Pelican (IC 5070) Nebulae in Cygnus.

Equipment: Hutech-modified Canon T2i dSLR and Canon EF70-200mm f/4L zoom USM lens (operating at 70mm) mounted on an Astrotrac tracking EQ mount & Manfrotto 055 tripod.

Exposures: 104x1min at f/5.0 ISO 1600

Conditions: Temperature 8°C, Humidity 59%, Dew Point 16 (no dew). LVM 4.5, Transparency 5/5, Steadiness 5/5, clear sky

Processing:

ImagesPlus 4.25 x64: Auto DSLR Image Set Processing - Bayer at Capture WB, Normalize, Grade, Align, Combine (Excluded Min/Max Average)
47 final frames used. Digital Develop Break-Point Highlights : 660. Generate 16 bit TIF for further processing.

Lightroom 4: The framing is perfect, so no crop or rotate needed. Reduce colour depth, annotate, export jpg versions.

Photoshop Elements 10: Create an annotated version of the photo.