NGC 6559 Region - Sagittarius

Object Data: The region of NGC6559 / IC4685 / IC1275 / IC1274 in Sagittarius is a fascinating complex of emission and reflection nebulosity which lies 1.5 degrees to the ENE of M8 and is probably connected to the M8 region by the continuous underlying nebulous haze. Date: 29/06/2006 Location: Southern France Conditions: Calm, no dew, transparency=8, seeing=7 Optics: Astro-Physics 155 EDF f/7 working at f/5.2 with AP reducer Mount: AP 900 GTO on Portable Pier Camera: SBIG ST-8E / CFW-8 Guiding: Integral ST-8E autoguider Exposure: LRGB: Luminance: 8x 10 minutes; RGB: 2x 10:10:16 minutes binned 2x2 Processing: Image acquisition and initial processing using Maxim DL, subsequent processing in RegiStar and Photoshop. Notes: Very low elevation even from southern France - max 21 deg, average around 19 deg during exposure - a barely viable target. But this is the best I can do without consigning this extremely valuable equipment to the baggage handlers at Heathrow - this I will never do. Still, I can do better than this given the right transparency and seeing conditions.