Some 2800 light years distant and 24 light years in breadth, M35 lies at the base of the Gemini, and under favorable conditions, is a "naked eye" object. The colorful puff of stars to the right is NGC-2158, itself an open cluster laying far beyond M35 at 16,000 light years from earth.
This image is composed of many individual frames that have been "stacked" using adaptive addition, a process that builds up intensities, increasing the signal to noise (S/N) ratio while contolling saturation of the brighter areas. Stacking removes most random noise, while a series of "dark frames" gathered at the same session tackles recurrent noise.
Taken with a Canon D60 digital SLR through a Takahashi FS128 and TeleVue 0.85 reducer/flattener, this image is comprised of 27 raw 150 second shots at ISO400 and an ambient temperature of about 35 deg F. Processing done in Images Plus, with final touches in Adobe PhotoShop. |
