From: "Milton Aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: June 19, 2006 2:57:06 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: M17- The Omega (or Swan or HorseShoe or Lobster) Nebula

Hi Folks;

After a 3 week drought, it finally cleared up last night (wasn't

supposed to) with reasonably dark skies (about Mag 2), so I was up

until 3:30 am taking images.

Here is a 4 minute exposure stack (12 frames) of M17, which I had to

push image processing wise to bring out the nebula. Transparency kept

falling over time and the background sky glow kept rising. I basically

have to throw out all pixel values below 30,000 out of 65,535 due to

light pollution.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/M17_20060619_MJA.jpg

All pertinent info is embedded in the image.

Clear skies..

Milton Aupperle