Bubble Nebula HST

[Rodd]

I was amazed to learn that the bright highlight on the left side of the bubble is actually the perfect mirrored reflection of a small horn of the nearby nebula, and not just a smattering of bright light.  I noticed the reflection after I decompressed the dynamic range of a clone of the image in preparation to make a contoured star mask to be used in star reduction.  Try as I might, I could not find a way to include the details of the reflection in the main image due to the wide dynamic range between the highlight/reflection and the rest of the image (I know, layers would solve this, as well as the  rest of the world's troubles I am sure ).  The bubble is therefor transparent and reflective-depending on the incident angle of light--just like a soap bubble.

Image has about 27 hours of Ha, OIII, SII, 20 min subs, binned 2x2, C11Edge @1960 mmfl (.7x reducer).  There are 30 Ha, 30 OIII but only 23 SII--not sure I will add additional subs.  Until my processing skills improve, collecting the data might be time better spent elsewhere (another target).

[Rodd]

By the way--the crop is just a crop--no resampling of any kind--so it should not be at a bigger scale.  This business of cropping, resampling, zooming, has me chasing my tail.

[Rodd]

I think this is a better version--not as sharp in certain details--but smaller stars

[wimvb]

That's a great image. As you showed, it becomes even better with reduced stars.

[Rodd]

Here's one a little less Pixinsightish--Only one minor saturation boost (red) in the outer regions.  All other color was there, I just boosted brightness a bit.

[Rodd]

Here's my final version that I will[post--I am getting tired of making changes.  Maybe next week I will see if I have an improvement.  Stars reduced further and local  histogram equalization.

[Gina]

Better and better - superb image - beautiful

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

Better and better - superb image - beautiful

Thanks Gina!

[laudropb]

Very nice image.