Skirting low on the southern horizon, this unusual nebula is one of the brightest of its class in the entire sky. Also known as Gum 60, this 12.8 magnitude object spans 45 arcminutes in length and has a 21st magnitude central star. (The star seen just to the right of the central dust lane is another star)

Processing: Because seeing is so terrible down this low, the stars were smeared to about 1/4 the size of the nebula. Very careful Richard Lucy Deconvolution was able to restore the image because the smear was apparently quite Gaussian in distribution. The nebula is bright, so the six images in the red L channel were averaged and DDP was sparing applied.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  RRGB = 60:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2)
RGB Combine Ratio:  1: .95: 1.8
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW = 10 arcsec, Transparency 6/10
Outside Temperature:  15 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN, PW Pro.

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