NGC 6960 Witch's Broom in the Hubble palette

[x6gas]

I've had a go a reprocessing the Western Veil data that I captured the other night.

I know that some people are not fond of the Hubble Palette for this object, but I have to say I quite like it. I've had trouble controlling the colour noise - I just don't have enough data...

Taken with my TS90 APO triplet w/ Atik 460ex, CG-5 guided with PHD using an IMG0H as a guidecam.

Ha 12 x 300s subs : OIII 4 x 600s subs : SII 4 x 600s subs

All binned 1x1, stacked in AstroArt 5 and processed in Serif PhotoPlus X4.

[Martin-Devon]

Yep, looks promising. Are you sure this is really Hubble palette though, since it's very green which is indicative of H-alpha signal thats not been selective colour converted? There's a very nice weblink which walks you through the colour conversion steps: http://bf-astro.com/hubbleP.htm this will transition green into gold-like colour if you do it right.

The Veil often responds better to simple HOO (into RGB channels), this gives the striking red/blue inter-twining colours - have a shot at this as well since you've got some great data here.

[Coco]

Nice... I'll be watching your post with the TS90 APO triplet I nearly bought the very same scope myself.

[Gina]

Very nice

[x6gas]

Yep, looks promising. Are you sure this is really Hubble palette though, since it's very green which is indicative of H-alpha signal thats not been selective colour converted? There's a very nice weblink which walks you through the colour conversion steps: http://bf-astro.com/hubbleP.htm this will transition green into gold-like colour if you do it right.

The Veil often responds better to simple HOO (into RGB channels), this gives the striking red/blue inter-twining colours - have a shot at this as well since you've got some great data here.

Thanks for the feedback, Martin. I had actually followed that tutorial (Badgers has posted the link on his North American nebula image) but in trying to treat the noise in the background I muted the colours and then further tweaks did seem to make the gold more green; it's more noticeable on the posted image than a local copy for some reason and I hadn't paid enough attention (I was quite pleased at reducing the noise!)

Anyway, redoing the selective colour tweaks meant that I ended up with a much better result, so thanks!

I will have a go at the Ha / OIII / OIII version too. As you can see I managed to wash out all of the star colour when processing this - I am beginning to realise how each target responds completely differently to processing... or perhaps it's because my processing is still all over the place as I experiment!

[x6gas]

Thanks Guy, thanks Gina.

Guy - I still have a long way to go with this processing lark and I know I'm not getting the most out of my equipment or the data. As I mentioned in another post, stupidly I didn't have the dew band cranked up high enough so the optics misted so I had to compromise on including a coupld of soft subs to try to include enough data. I've had the TS APO for coming up on a year now though and I do really like it..

[stellawolf]

Nice image well done