Ghostly goings on in Cepheus

[peter shah]

Another perfect one for Halloween a Wide field of Vdb-141 The Ghost Nebula in Cepheus. 3 hours 15mins of Luminance 9x530s in Blue, 7x600s in Red and 6x420s in Green, conditions were variable with haze and poor seeing. Its been a real difficult project, im really not very happy with the colour data, gradients and barely enough to pull out the colour, all down to the UK weather hampered by rain showers high wind and moon light.

thanks for looking

Peter

[TakMan]

Still a fantastic result though Peter, with your usual lovely star colours!

And perfect timing to boot to!

Damian

[MikeD]

WOW, that's a fantastic image.

Such a rich field, it must have been a real challenge to process with less than perfect data, but you have controlled it very well.

Mike.

[Tom OD]

Excellent shot Peter, beautiful star colour, and I like the white section of the ghost nebula. Its bright, detailed, and mixes with the brown dust and the waving ghosts really really well.

Tom

[LukeSkywatcher]

Great image and very apt fort the time of year

[prokyon]

Hi Peter,

great! One of my favorite objects. Very nice colours.

Werner

[morimarty]

Hi peter

Considering your battle with the elements, this is a incredible image. your perseverance as certainly paid off. on this very special object.very well done.

ATB. martyn

[peter shah]

many thanks everyone, im very pleased with it, but it might still be worth getting some new RGB data

[ollypenrice]

Well done, Peter. This is such a faint little devil and so hard to render without lots of noise. I really struggled with the colour, too. I thought I'd cracked it with a decent luminance layer but then the colour was just washed out when I applied it. I couldn't believe how much more colour data I had to get.

I can't remember seeing this from another UK imager. Hats off!

Olly

[Black Knight]

It might be a difficult image to pull off, but It's still a great image though

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Spikey]

Fantastic colours Peter, a lovely image.

[peter shah]

Well done, Peter. This is such a faint little devil and so hard to render without lots of noise. I really struggled with the colour, too. I thought I'd cracked it with a decent luminance layer but then the colour was just washed out when I applied it. I couldn't believe how much more colour data I had to get.

I can't remember seeing this from another UK imager. Hats off!

Olly

It is a tough target i like a challenge now and then. It was your shot that gave me the push to go for it, i would have quite possibly forgot it was there and it would have been another year. I will get some fresh RGB for it if the weather plays ball....and i need some more for the Iris to get them to work together as a mosaic. Im not sure about others taken from the UK, but then again there arent that many dark parts here that would allow such a faint object.

thanks again

[peter shah]

I know ive been going on about the colour data being bad, so i thought i would show you how bad just in case you thought i was making it up.

This example is the RGB data with just curves and levels. I would never let it get this bad and would put in small corrections as i went along. Most of the signal was at noise level so i had to push it further than im comfortable with. I think it shows how out of control it could have gone. Its quite a good example of how complex the gradients can be when you have Hazy skies, dew, low signal and old flats.

cheers

Peter

[steppenwolf]

Commented elsewhere but well worth repeating here - well done, Peter, from our skies this is a very tough object so your image is all the more impressive!

[laser_jock99]

I know ive been going on about the colour data being bad, so i thought i would show you how bad just in case you thought i was making it up.

This example is the RGB data with just curves and levels. I would never let it get this bad and would put in small corrections as i went along. Most of the signal was at noise level so i had to push it further than im comfortable with. I think it shows how out of control it could have gone. Its quite a good example of how complex the gradients can be when you have Hazy skies, dew, low signal and old flats.

cheers

Peter

I can only agree about the conditions we had last week. The nights were 'clearish' but variable amounts of haze and high cloud must make night-to-night imaging well nigh impossible. I saw huge variation across a single session last week- you have my admiration expecting to combine several nights data!

[ollypenrice]

That RGB data is humbling. I would have no idea where to start with that! Not a clue.

Olly

[andrew63]

This in the image on apod it is an impressive sight - nice capture!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

[peter shah]

That RGB data is humbling. I would have no idea where to start with that! Not a clue.

Olly

It was hard work to say the least to the point where i wasnt even going to bother. That RGB was pushed without correction, i had to correct for it several times as i pushed the curves....so it never looked that bad during processing and my RGB data doesnt look that bad usually

This in the image on apod it is an impressive sight - nice capture!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

yeah saw that its a beautiful rendition

[Tim]

Lovely rendition Peter, the colours look just "right" despite the dodgy data

[Coco]

So much detail, so many colours, so many beautifully controlled stars and faint gradients.. and crikey anyone would think you lived 100 miles from the nearest town... how far from reality eh?

Bravo !

.