Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius. One of the challenges with fast sensors without a blooming gate is estimating exposure time without creating massive blooms or daggers going through your bright stars. Once that is figured out, deep, smooth images can be acquired with surprisingly short exposure times. Diffraction spikes were added by putting 2 pieces of black thread across the lens shade. This helps bring out the star colours and reduces the amount of blooming.br/Scope: Takahashi FSQ-106, 530mm at f5br/ Camera: SBIG ST-10XME using internal guide chip, AstroDon RGB filtersbr/ Mount: Astro-Physics 900QMDbr/ Exposures: 8 x 3 minutes red, 7x3 minutes green and blue binned 1x1br/ Images acquired using MaximDL 5br/ Calibration in MaximDL 5; PixInsight Lite and Photoshop CS5br/ Location and Date: Summit of Mt. Kobau, B.C.; Aug 14 2010