NGC 7000. The North America Nebula

Aug 11th, 2024

6 h 15 m

Aug 10th, 2024

8 h 5 m

Finally, after 2 years, astrophotography again. This time my first image with the ZWO ASI6200MM monochrome camera. I tried to create a color palette, and it seems to have worked. I made a major mistake by removing the camera from the focuser after shooting HSO, and apparently the RGB had a different camera tilt. I had to crop the image many times: 1) The camera produces artificial vignetting due to the huge sensor (this will always happen because the outline of the focuser tube is visible) 2) PlateSolving didn't quite finish centering after passing the meridian line. As a result, I shot the first part of the night with one field orientation, and after the flip, with another. This caused black bands to appear after stacking. 3) Because I removed the camera from the focuser, the stars in RGB were not centered relative to the nebula. In the end, I cropped 40% of the image, and it's better to remove the star spikes for the stars. ALSO, there is one nuance. I processed this on an OLED monitor – IPS matrices may show a slightly different color gamut (I saw this myself). I will try to reprocess it again. P.S. HSORGB processing is much more difficult and time-consuming than I thought. I struggled with a pink tint in the light that shouldn't be there. I will also try to reprocess it, taking into account the electromagnetic wavelength range in which the channels were shot, and see how we would perceive this nebula with our own eyes.