Equipment


The 120 ED, set up at Bootland Farm with the Orion Starshoot camera on board and currently engaged in acquiring flats.

Telescopes
150mm Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain, f/10, and focal reducer for f/6.3
120mm Orion EON Apochromatic refractor, f/7.5

Lenses
Canon EF 200mm f/2.8 USL
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

Cameras
Canon XSi, unmodified
Canon 50D, modified for greater red sensitivity (Hutech)
Orion Starshoot Pro 2.0

Photographic Filters
77mm and 48 mm Hutech LPS filters
72mm Kenko red filter
2 inch Lumicon UHC cell filter (broadband OIII, H beta)

Mount
Synscan NEQ6 Pro
Prior to August 25 2010, I used a Synscan HEQ5 Pro.

Guiding
Orion Starshoot autoguider, on 80mm short refractor (f5). Since about the beginning of August 2010, I make an earnest effort to dither (at present, manually between every long exposure) as this results in significantly less noise after stacking.

Gizmos
Orion AccuFocus and Shoestring USB controller
GPS receiver for mount controller

Image Processing
I use MaxIm for flat/dark calibration and image stacking, and initial color balance. In nearly all cases, I stack using sigma clip, and convert to 16 bit TIFF with a gamma of 0.5-0.6. I then use the Photoshop routines of Neil Carboni to neutralize and darken the sky, and enhance the images as required. A further slight enhancement with Levels and sharpening is sometimes needed.

Locations
My back yard: 45deg 21.2min, 75deg 42.9min (LP=white)
Leitrim Arena, Ottawa: 45deg 19.8min, 75deg 35.6min (LP=red)
Champlain Lookout, Gatineau, Quebec: 45deg 30.5min, 75deg 54.8min (LP=orange/red)
Frontier Road, Ottawa: 45deg 21min, 75deg 25min (LP=orange)
Moose Creek, Ontario: 45deg 15min, 75deg 03min (LP=yellow)
Fred Lossing Observatory, Ontario: 45deg 15min, 76deg 16min (LP=yellow but looking west to dark skies)
Bootland Farm, Ontario: 45deg 23.9min, 76deg 29.5min (LP=yellow but looking west to dark skies)
Foymount, Ontario: 45deg 25.9min, 77deg 18.3 min (LP=green/blue)
Tooey Lake, Ontario: 45deg 20.5min, 77deg 1.4min (LP=blue, looking SW to gray)
Nirvana (Irvine Lake airstrip), Ontario: 45deg 1.8min, 77deg 15.8min (LP=grey)
Verendrye airstrip, Quebec: 46deg 59.1min, 76deg 29min (LP=black)