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A Cone, a Christmas Tree and a bit of Fox Fur

PhotoGav

By PhotoGav
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

Posted
Posted

I have been binge processing this weekend!

Here is my version of The Cone Nebula, The Christmas Tree Cluster and The Fox Fur Nebula. This is an area of sky in the constellation Monoceros, about 2,700 light years away. The Cone Nebula appears at the bottom of the image as a pyramid of dust, the Christmas Tree Cluster is the collection of bright stars in the middle of the image and the Fox Fur Nebula is the striated nebulosity just to the right of the bright central star. The Fox Fur Nebula is so named as it resembles the head of a stole made from the fur of a red fox (you don't see many of them adorning ladies these days!!).

Tech details are:

Altair Astro 102ED, HEQ5, QSI-683 with Baader filters.

H alpha = 18 x 1800s
RGB = 18 x 600s each
TOTAL = 18 hours

This has been a complete pill to process and has taken me ages. There are bits of the final image that I like (the detail in the nebulosity) and bits that I hate (the blooming bright stars). I felt that I could offer no more to the image, so stopped fiddling with it. Hopefully it is acceptable! I used APP (Astro Pixel Processor) to do the data integration, to combine and stretch the RGB data and to stretch the H alpha data. I found that much more than that in APP just made a mess. So, I took the two files into Photoshop where I added the H alpha data into the Red channel and used a slightly modified H alpha image (I added in a bit of the RGB star data) as a Luminance channel. I made various other tweaks to try and make it presentable. I look forward to hearing what you all think.

 

Cone-HaRGB-11-Final.thumb.png.5515366f04206cfda3edc333f556afed.png

 

Clear skies,

Gav.

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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1 minute ago, PhotoGav said:

Thanks Dave! The secret is plenty of cups of tea and moments of not staring at it...

And not having a wife that says " how much more time are you going to waste playing on that computer " :grin:

Dave

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Swoop1

Swoop1

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Very nice Gav. Unlike Mr niall, on seeing the thread title, my first thoughts were Valerie Singleton and Leslie Judd (I know, showing my age....)

On my MacBook, I find that tilting the screen away from me darkens the screen, reducing the prominence of some of the stars but really bringing out the contrast and detail in the nebulosity.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Thank you all for your positive (and entertaining) comments.

Dave - I have one of those, but she is used to my tinkering and just tuts and walks away.

Swoop1 - perhaps it should be renamed the Shep Fur Nebula?! I liked your approach to darkening the image. That is exactly what it needed, so I gave it a tweak in Photoshop and here is the result. An improvement, I think.

Cone-HaRGB-12-Final-Darkened.thumb.png.98acd390ed277c86339530f14d515a92.png

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Thank you Mars1960, simmo39, Sara and Rodd. It's always good to get feedback. As for time processing, that is what puts me off starting - I know that it's going to take a while and I need to have a good clear period of time to dedicate to it. Not always easy to find in this busy world!

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