NGC 7078 or Messier 15, a bright globular in Pegasus

NGC 7078, M15, is a globular cluster in Pegasus with

a very condensed core.  M15 conatins 100 000 stars

and is 35.7 kly from our solar system.

Hover over the picture for an annotated version

Date:  6 and 7 July 2024

FOV:  cropped to 45' × 30'; the angular size of M15 is about 18'

Telescope:  Stellarvue SVX102T + SFFX-1 (714mm, f/7)

Guiding:  ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,

Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope

Computer:  ASIair pro Raspberry Pi

Mount:  iOptron CEM40

Camera:  ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS with gain 90

Pixel size:  4.78 μm

Resolution:  1.333 arcsec/pixel

Filter:  none

Stacking:  one hundred and twenty-three frames using PixInsight HDRComp

40 frames × 15 sec

30 frames × 60 sec

15 frames × 240 sec end of 6 July 2024 session

38 frames × 240 sec end of 7 July 2024 session

Total Time:  4 hours 12 minutes

Processing:  Pixinsight – SPPC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT, DynCrop → Linear

MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Stars, Sat,

StarXT, MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Starless,

Sat, PMath ~(~Stars*~Starless) → Blend, scale

Location:  Cherry Springs State Park near Coudersport, PA