NGC 7023 - Iris Nebula from Les Granges

[gnomus]

Whilst California was being collected - https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/280659-355-hrs-in-california/ - we pointed Olly's TEC 140 in the vague direction of the Iris Nebula.  Over the course of 3 nights, we got hold of 4.5 hours each of RGB for a total of 13.5 hours, plus 5 hours and 15 minutes of Lum.  We extracted a synthetic luminance from the RGB and added this to the 'real' Lum (estimating that it gave us an equivalent of about 3 hours Lum).  I was at the keyboard but Olly was hovering over my right shoulder prodding me in the right direction.  We managed to get the praying ghosts in frame, which was a bonus.

 

[ChrisLX200]

Another excellent image, you've had a very productive week by the looks of it!

ChrisH

[steppenwolf]

Very nice indeed - lovely detail in those dusty bits!

[Rodd]

Great image-having to make the adjustment back to your sky might not be so pleasant.

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work - lucky old you with all that data.  Nice work an all round nice and well balanced image.

Paddy

[Mick J]

Great image again, you are having a productive week,  good stuff.

[Rush]

Very nice image, excellent.

[carastro]

Great image, I did the same targets, different framing from Ollys a few years ago, such lovely dark and clear skies there.  

Lovely star colour too.

Carole 

 

[astro mick]

Lovely image indeed,so much dust and detail showing up.

I tried this the other night,and did,nt get anywhere the dust showing here.

Lot less hours though, as usual the following nights were cloudy, so could,nt get aymore subs.

I try to complete in one night if i can.

Mick. 

[gnomus]

Slight cock up on the processing front.  At some stage we ended up getting the image into a bizarre colour space.  It looked OK on Olly's monitor but it did not look OK when I posted it up last night.  We are not entirely sure what we did wrong, but I was at the controls so I must take full responsibility.  Here is the corrected version:

[simmo39]

Luv the dust cloud, can almost touch it!

[toxic]

i cant see any real difference  between the 2

but an awesome image in any case 

[gnomus]

Thanks again everyone.

4 minutes ago, toxic said:

i cant see any real difference  between the 2

but an awesome image in any case 

The background in image 1 is a bit too dark, red and fierce.  Strange things these colour spaces.  

[Rush]

19 minutes ago, gnomus said:

Thanks again everyone.

The background ...............Strange things these colour spaces.  

Colours are are jelly jelly like , Yves Klein monochromes mix is fully different than Picasso Blue period.

Its a very nice image you have there, i can see the Swaying ghosts

CS

 

 

[Tom OD]

I just love the line, while the taks were on the Californian nebula we out the Tec on the Iris. 

lovely pic, and all those hours really show in the nice smooth Brown dusty data. Great work. 

Tom. 

[Barry-Wilson]

Yes, I have to agree with the comments, great work Steve bringing out the brown dust and details within the reflection nebula.  Excellent work.

[swag72]

Very nice indeed - You have become a Master of processing  Well done

[gnomus]

2 hours ago, swag72 said:

Very nice indeed - You have become a Master of processing  Well done

Well let's wait and see what happens once Olly takes the stabilizers off...

[StuartJPP]

Shows what good clear skies can deliver (plus the kit and expertise of course).

These days I would have skipped Iris and gone for the ghost on its own...I like these dark nebulae.

[gnomus]

Now back in the UK.  We got 78 hours of data for our week at Les Granges.  One goes for the skies and the resulting data collection, of course, but watching Olly processing and learning some of his techniques is as much, and possibly more, important.  That colour space foul up on the Iris kept bothering me as the 'fix' didn't look as good as it had done originally.  So I went back to the original stacks and started again.  I spent a bit more time than we had originally on the problematic stars.  I think I got a better background than is on the previous posted versions, and, as a result, I think I can see a little more of the faint stuff.  But I would appreciate any comments or contrary views.  

 

[Davey-T]

Never mind the background / stars, the detail in the Iris itself is superb, none of the usual blown out fuzzy core.

Dave

[gnomus]

Thanks DaveyT - I may have tweaked that a bit too.

[Barry-Wilson]

Excellent Steve, subtle improvements have really helped an incremental quality gain.

Maybe darken the background a tad?  Fine curve adjustment for contrast?  All quite subjective of course.

Maybe your best image to date?  I'm running out of superlatives for your recent images and leap up in both data acquisition and processing ability.  Well done.

[gnomus]

25 minutes ago, Barry-Wilson said:

Excellent Steve, subtle improvements have really helped an incremental quality gain.

Maybe darken the background a tad?  Fine curve adjustment for contrast?  All quite subjective of course.

Maybe your best image to date?  I'm running out of superlatives for your recent images and leap up in both data acquisition and processing ability.  Well done.

Jings - thanks Barry.  After that, how could I not take your advice?  I also boosted the core saturation just a 'thochty' whilst at it.  

 

[Barry-Wilson]

Yep, you got it!