Title: Neptune in Aquarius
Date: Imaged 16 July 2019 (3:01 am)
Location: Halifax, NS
Equipment: Canon Rebel T3 DSLR at ISO-800 at prime focus with 80mm f/6 Orion ED80T-CF refractor on a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount; 10 sec exposures.
6
Processing: A series of 20 subs (10 sec each) and 3 darks were captured in RAW16 format and converted to TIFF format using Canon’s Digital Photo Professional. Sequator was used to stack the images and Photoshop CS2 was used for to adjust levels and color balance/saturation, as well as for noise removal. StarTools was used to remove gradients. Microsoft Photo was used to tweak clarity, contrast, highlights, shadows, and exposure of the final jpg image.
Comments: The location of Neptune in this image was confirmed by comparing the image with the star field containing Neptune in Stellarium. Major stars in vicinity of Neptune were also identified, including the red giant 90 Aqr in the constellation Aquarius. Neptune appears as a moderately bright blue star in this wide field image with higher magnification needed to resolve the disk of the planet.