The Cave nebula is a fairly bright nebula in Cepheus. This image only shows the H-alpha component. This has been on my to-do list for a very long time.

This image does not hold up to magnification very well since I shot this in 2x2 binned mode because I was testing something mount related.

Technical details:
Date: Sept 6, 2015
Time: 9:00 pm - 12:40 am
Camera: SBIG STF-8300M
CCD Temperature: -8 C
Optics: Televue 127is (native)
Filter: Astrodon 5 nm H-alpha
Light frames: 19x10 min
Dark frames: 35
Flat frames: 25
Flat darks: 15
Binning: 2x2
Guiding: Orion SSAG @ Orion finder (~162 mm)
Mount: AP Mach 1
Dithering: Manual
Processing: Stacking in CCDStack, Levels in PSCS6.

Other notes:
The goal of this session was two-fold. First, during my last couple of outings, the mount acted up a bit. I only lost one frame in each of those sessions, but it was enough for me to investigate. Roland and George from Astro-Physics had a couple of suggestions which I promptly followed, and the problem has now disappeared. This puts me in a position where I should be able to automate my imaging routine. Since I didn't know if I would encounter the mount problem during this night, I shot this area binned at 2x2, thus reducing the resolution of the final image.

The second goal of this session was to give color mapping an honest shot. I dropped the ball in the planning phase as I selected an object that has very little O-III, and the resulting image is not worthy of this gallery. However, it is not as eye-cancer-inducing as my first attempt, so I am including links to the O-III and the color mapped images (they suck, I know). I'll give color mapping another shot on brighter targets. Since I split up the night into two parts (H-alpha in the first part, O-III in the second part), I ended up with half as many frames as I would have had I focused on just one channel.

Otherwise, it was an uneventful night. The field mice were again keeping me company. Later in the night I saw another animal in the distance. I've seen a fox at that exact location once, but what I saw this night seemed larger than a fox but smaller than a deer.