Messier 17 - Omega Nebula

  I think I could have benefited greatly from more subs on this one.  I ended up getting all .fits instead of raws on the 1st night.  The second night, MaximDL hung on downloading one of the raws, then the trees took over and I lost the autoguiding star.  I will try to add more sometime this season.  This nebula grabbed my interest simply because it was near Pluto (more on that object later).  I really like it.  Despite only 4 subs for a total of 14 min I think it came out well.

Stats

Optics: Meade LXD55 6" Schmidt Newtonian OTA
Mount: CGE mount on JMI Wheely Bars
Camera: Canon XTi with Hutech LP Filter (LPS-P2-FF)
Focusing Aid: STI focuser
Shutter control: Hap Griffin long exposure cable
Software: MaximDL
Guiding: DMK21AF04 with a piggybacked 4" SkyWatcher via PHD and ASCOM drivers
Operating System: WinXP Lenovo T61
Subs: Canon Raw 3x 180s @ ISO 1600 and 1x 300s @ ISO 800
Pre-Processing: Iris per automated Jim Solomon's Cookbook
Post-Processing: Levels, curves, selective gauss in Gimp alone.

Some additional subject details on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_17

Thanks,

Mike