NGC 6164 / 6165 - Bipolar Nebula

[jsmoraes]

Constellation of Norma. Bipolar nebula with material thrown off from the star,  because of  its fast rotation.

Technical note:  
I did 62 photos: 
26 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 - Skyglow filter 
10 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 - UHC filter 
10 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 - Halfa filter 
And on another day: 
19 x 300 sec - ISO 1600 - UHC filter 

Total of 3 h 30 min. 

I had many problems with DSS stacking using group ressource. I did many combinations of files and procedures. 

DSS didn't use all UHC and Halfa frames when using bias file. And the result was aberration. 

  2 days working on this issue...   I gave up ! 

Nevertheless I had two good results with: 

1) 15 x 300 sec - ISO 1600 - UHC filter without bias. 
2) 19 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 - Skyglow filter + 5 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 UHC filter + 6 x 300 sec - UHC filter (the best FWHM frames for each group) 

I can not hide my frustration. 3 hours of data reduced to 1 hour ! 

First work: 
GSO 305 mm - Canon T3 - OAG - Coma Corrector 
15 x 300 sec - ISO 1600 - UHC filter without bias. 

Second work: 
GSO 305 mm - Canon T3 - OAG - Coma Corrector 
19 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 - Skyglow filter + 5 x 150 sec - ISO 1600 UHC filter + 6 x 300 sec - UHC filter 

note: a very beautiful image with detail can be seen at: http://panther-observatory.com/gallery/deepsky/doc/NGC6164_F9.htm

[Atreta]

very nice jsmoraes.  can you post the resulting aberration you mentioned? 

[jsmoraes]

I restored some Autosave.tif that show the main aberration I had.

With Skyglow, UHC and bias I had bad images of stars with 51 frames and 30 best frames

With 51 frames (skyglow and UHC) , no bias and different stacking method I had images like:

With Skyglow and UHC and suggested automatic proportional method I had 

And an example of good result with UHC and no bias

If I work only with Skyglow, bias work well. With only UHC bias is disaster. With Skyglow, UHC and bias in different group I have good result if I use integration medium or proportional method; any other method is disaster: the stars blow up !

note: I used two different bias (ISO 1600 and ISO 800) to process skyglow and UHC together. The better performance was with bias ISO 800 with property changed to be seen as ISO 1600 by DSS. All CR2 files were done with ISO 1600. The bias ISO 1600 work well with Skyglow filter.

When using ISO 1600 bias with UHC files, together or not with Skyglow, DSS use only few UHC files. The count number is ok only to 4 files (400 to 600) from 19 files. The others 15 have 20 - 72. 

With no bias, those 15 files shows the count number as 400 to 600 and DSS use all them

If any one want to test to check it ... I can share the CR2 files and dark, flat, darkflat, bias files. They will be 62 CR2 files and 5 calibration files.

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[jsmoraes]

Thank you for comments. I am working in the area of NGC 6188, an amazing region !  NGC 6164/65 and NGC 6193 are inside. A better look of what I am trying to tell can be seen at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121228.html - a Kfir Simon work - where you can see all them: NGC 6193 at left top and NGC 6164/65 at right botton.

[jsmoraes]

New process using the same method to mono camera with RGB filter. Each color channel was converted to 16 bits and processed to have the best quality and details.

note: I think that noise, details and colors were improved. A bit of enhancement should be applied to red-yellow stars, they are more red than yellow.

It was a try to test other way to process my photos. Perhaps I need enhance my skills in this method.

[wimvb]

A wonderful image of a lesser known target. Great result, despite your troubles.