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Description
Full view for maximum effect

The Diamond Cluster (NGC 2516) in Carina

For this image, I travelled out to Belanglo State Forest. Yes, the same site of the grisly Backpacker Murders that took place in the early 90s by the one Ivan Milat. It was an eerie feeling, let me tell you, being out in this ghostly forest surrounded by 20-30 metre trees. I can only imagine how those poor, helpless victims felt as they succumbed to the whims of the hideous Milat.

This image marked first light for my Canon EOS 5D Mark II for astrophotography. I am incredibly impressed by the fact that in the original high-resolution Photoshop document, there is virtually no background noise to speak of. This camera is just sensational; I have done some test shots up to ISO-1600 for 600 seconds and there's not much noise to speak of, at all. I will use it in future endeavours for nebulae.

The Diamond Cluster is a large, open cluster that is visible to the unaided human as a fuzzy patch, and best seen through binoculars, or a medium focal length telescope.

It contains roughly 100 stars splattered over an area the size of what the full Moon would take up in the sky.

Of note here are the two 5th magnitude red giant stars and several doubles of 8th and 9th magnitude.

The cluster is about 70 million years old.

North is left, East is down.

This composite consists of one set of images; one set of 48 images taken at ISO-800.
Each individual image was a 300 second exposure.
IRIS was used to calibrate each image (dark subtraction [median combined master dark] and flat field division [median combined master flat {lights and darks}]), to register, align, stack, white balance, and stretch.
Photoshop CS3 was used to adjust levels, curves, saturation, colour balance, local contrast, sharpen, miscellaneous editing, frame and resize the final composite.

Target: The Diamond Cluster (NGC 2516) in Carina
Date: Friday, November 13th, 2009
Time: First image: 11:56 PM
Time: Last image: 3:55 AM
Location: Belanglo State Forest, NSW, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Telescope: ED127 triplet APO refractor f/7.5
Focal length: 952mm
Mount: Losmandy G-11 (Gemini)
Guiding: Meade DSI-C through William Optics ZenithStar FD80 f/6.9
Exposure: 48 x 300 seconds (4 hours) @ ISO-800 (RAW)
Software: Canon EOS Utility: capture and framing; PHD Guiding: autoguiding; IRIS: calibration, registration, stacking, stretching; Adobe Photoshop CS3: post-processing and framing

Description
Full view for maximum effect

The Diamond Cluster (NGC 2516) in Carina

For this image, I travelled out to Belanglo State Forest. Yes, the same site of the grisly Backpacker Murders that took place in the early 90s by the one Ivan Milat. It was an eerie feeling, let me tell you, being out in this ghostly forest surrounded by 20-30 metre trees. I can only imagine how those poor, helpless victims felt as they succumbed to the whims of the hideous Milat.

This image marked first light for my Canon EOS 5D Mark II for astrophotography. I am incredibly impressed by the fact that in the original high-resolution Photoshop document, there is virtually no background noise to speak of. This camera is just sensational; I have done some test shots up to ISO-1600 for 600 seconds and there's not much noise to speak of, at all. I will use it in future endeavours for nebulae.

The Diamond Cluster is a large, open cluster that is visible to the unaided human as a fuzzy patch, and best seen through binoculars, or a medium focal length telescope.

It contains roughly 100 stars splattered over an area the size of what the full Moon would take up in the sky.

Of note here are the two 5th magnitude red giant stars and several doubles of 8th and 9th magnitude.

The cluster is about 70 million years old.

North is left, East is down.

This composite consists of one set of images; one set of 48 images taken at ISO-800.
Each individual image was a 300 second exposure.
IRIS was used to calibrate each image (dark subtraction [median combined master dark] and flat field division [median combined master flat {lights and darks}]), to register, align, stack, white balance, and stretch.
Photoshop CS3 was used to adjust levels, curves, saturation, colour balance, local contrast, sharpen, miscellaneous editing, frame and resize the final composite.

Target: The Diamond Cluster (NGC 2516) in Carina
Date: Friday, November 13th, 2009
Time: First image: 11:56 PM
Time: Last image: 3:55 AM
Location: Belanglo State Forest, NSW, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Telescope: ED127 triplet APO refractor f/7.5
Focal length: 952mm
Mount: Losmandy G-11 (Gemini)
Guiding: Meade DSI-C through William Optics ZenithStar FD80 f/6.9
Exposure: 48 x 300 seconds (4 hours) @ ISO-800 (RAW)
Software: Canon EOS Utility: capture and framing; PHD Guiding: autoguiding; IRIS: calibration, registration, stacking, stretching; Adobe Photoshop CS3: post-processing and framing