• NGC 188 and IFN in Cepheus
    • NGC 188 and IFN in Cepheus
    Annotated image
  • NGC 188 is a distant open cluster 4° from the North Star.
  • Also known as C 1, it is one of the oldest open clusters.
  • The pesky dust in the picture is just that, dust that
  • lies outside the galactic disk and is being lit up by
  • the integrated light of our own Milky Way.
  • The dust is called Integrated Flux Nebula or IFN.
  • Hover over the image for an annotated view.
  • Date:  10 September and 7 March 2024
  • FOV:  approximately 6° × 4°
  • Telescope:  Askar FRA300 pro (300mm f/5 Petzval)
  • Guiding:  ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
  • SVBony SV165 Mini 40mm f/4 guide scope
  • Computer:  ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
  • Mount:  ZWO AM5 mount
  • Camera:  ZWO ASI6200MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS, 90 gain
  • Pixel size:  3.76 μm
  • Resolution:  2.597 arcsec/pixel
  • Frames:7 March202448 × 240 seconds,
  • 10 September 202462 × 240 seconds
  • Filter:  Baader Semi APO
  • Stacking:  one hundred and ten 240 second light frames and twenty
  • dark flats, darks, and flats preprocessed in Pixinsight
  • Total Time:  7 hours 20 minutes
  • Processing:  Pixinsight – SPCC, GradCorr, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT,
  • StarXterminator (RC Astro) → Stars and Starless
  • Stars and Starless stretched separately with MaskedStr,
  • HDRMST8i on Starless, PixelMath ~(~Stars*~Starless),
  • Sat, DynCrop/Scale
  • Location:  Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY