A Months worth of Imaging and Processing

NGC 7023 - The Iris Nebula

I have always admired the astro-imagers who had 5,6+ hours soaked into one object.  I could never do that because I would get so excited with an hours worth of data, process it, then move on to the next object.  But not this time.  When I saw what I could pull out of the Iris nebula after about 45 minutes, I knew I wanted more.  More Dust!  This is my first astrophoto that clearly shows dark dust blocking the bright stars behind it.  I took these shots over the course of July and August, and ended up with almost 4 hours of "usable" frames.  Here are the details:

35 x 210" ISO 1600
25 x 270" ISO 1600

For a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes

Stacked with 45 darks

ES ED80 Triplet Apo
ASCG-5 GT
Orion Mini Guidescope
Meade DSI II
Canon 450d unmodded
Stacked in DSS
Processed in PS CS5