I first saw the baby eagle in a very wide field image of this area within the last year. It was small and in the corner, but it dominated the image for me and that’s all I could focus on. It was so... wow, and I couldn’t wait to image all of LBN 777. Once stacked and roughly processed, the small galaxies hiding behind the wispy dust, the colourful stars, and the eye and beak all showed should some definition, and I knew this was going to turn out great. But it was that patch of dark brown above the eye that soon took all my attention and soon learned of Barnard 207 and it's unique properties. It was tricky to process, creating so many variations of masks to not lose its distinction while applying stretches to the rest of the object. In the end, I’m quite happy with how the entire image turned out. This is an image I now love to share with family, friends and colleagues, as it always gets the reaction of “no way, is that for real, this is actually up there somewhere??!!”. Very similar to how I felt when I saw my first image of this target.
- Taken – October 24, 27-29th, 2022 in Rockwood ON
- 24h 36m - 492x180s lights, 30 flats, 30 dark flats, and 50 darks
- Askar 130phq with an asi294mc pro camera, gain 120, UV/IR filter, cooled to -10
- EQ6R-PRO with wo50mm guide scope and asi120mm guide camera
- Asiair Plus used for image acquisition
- EAF used for focus
- Pixinsight used for stacking and image processing