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28h cave nebula (or 'halo-monster' as i now call it)


graemlourens

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Hi everybody.

This picture has been sitting on my desktop for nearly 2 weeks now and i still am terrified to publish it already. The cave nebula definitively goes into the category like NGC6888 (if you're hunting that outer shell), just that in this case i had to fight with additionally SII.

Despite the slightly over 28h exposure time, and binning both OIII & SII (Tone map approach used, and HA = LUM), there was not much signal to work with. I think this is by far my noisiest image from the past 12 months. But maybe this also just plays well with the mysterious cave.

I manually had to 'fix' (or tried) over 80 stars in this image due to the fact that i was stretching HA more than a pizzaiolo does his dough.

The framing was intentional and i spend nearly 2 hours deciding how to frame it. I like that the cave is bottom left orientated and lots of the dark area visible as well to give a large contrast.

As usual i'd love your opinions. Good or bad.

SH2-155 - Cave nebula

Kind regards, Graem

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It is very good Graem, you have come a long way in a very short time :) I'd maybe like to see a little more saturation in the golden areas, but I'm splitting hairs here, it really is a fine image. Well done.

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Thx @johnrt

I get that feedback a lot that i mostly lack saturation comparing to what others would like/expect, and can understand it.

Its not that the data does not allow it, its really a choice as i really don't like oversaturated (or even close to that) images. I got used to this smoky approach as some call it, and fell in love with it! - but its a very personal taste and i don't blame anybody for lurking for more saturation.

Concerning the short time - If i look at my forum posts from 1.5 years ago i do get slightly embarrassed, but you guys here helped so much, its astonishing how much you can learn from a forum (and internet) filled with experienced people willing to share their knowledge.

Kind regards, Graem

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This is a very nice Cave Neb, in particular the dark dust lanes show up as well-defined features rather than just dark smudges. I agree it could benefit from a bit more saturation - that OIII channel I know from experience is difficult to capture and it's obvious you have very good signal there, it's a shame not to show off what you have!

ChrisH

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Thank you Lars & Dark Horizon!

It was more 5 nights than 1 full day - i wish it would be so fast :) (But on the other hand - too much of anything gets boring! I wonder how exciting taking astro-pictures is for somebody who can do it every single night)

Kind regards, Graem

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Thank you Peter!

I took my time framing, but when i got the first sub, i was angry i didn't align the cave to the right so i would have more signal of the left brighter area. But in the end i kept to my initial framing and its put some mystique to it i think. Framing has become a very crucial step in making an image for me.

Kind regards, Graem

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