IC 443 ... Jellyfish Nebula

[SlimPaling]

After dodging endless nights of thick clouds and rain for the last few weeks I have managed to get some of the longest duration subs that I have done so far to see how my system copes.

The attached image is of IC 443 .. "The Jellyfish Nebula" ... images being taken over three widely spaced evenings.

I managed to get 12 x 1200 sec CLS subs and 7 x 300 sec RGB subs. The subs were calibrated and stacked in MaximDL and processed in Photoshop.

I have to spend quite a lot of time trying to control the overpowering bloating of the large star at the bottom of the image (Eta Geminorum) but this is the best that I could get so far.

My night sky here in Nottinghamshire is not good at the best of times but I am reasonably happy with my results so far.

Any suggestions that will help me produce clearer images in the future would be welcomed as always :-)

Mike

[SimonS]

Very nice image! Love the detail you have captured

[alacant]

Hi. Excellent shot. I think all poor weather imagers deserve an enormous pat on the back. 

26 minutes ago, SlimPaling said:

help me produce clearer images

The only thing I can think of (very much non-expert) is that there's a lot of information missing. It's as if you've cut the histogram in half by setting black in the middle of the data. I think with the other half intact, you'd have more detail. HTH.

[LightBucket]

Yes, very good image but the backgraound is too black, it has been clipped I think too....  maybe you had to do,this to calm the bright stars down a bit...?

[Adam J]

Yep as others have said you clipped the background and lost detail. I have never tried this but am told its a faint object. 

[SlimPaling]

Hi ... what you have all said is interesting. I must admit I wasn't taking a lot of notice of the histogram when I was trying to get the star bloat of Eta Geminorum under some sort of control.

Looking back at a previous processing effort (see attached) I can see that the histogram is not clipped so badly .... but Eta Geminorum is over powering :-( That's when I started to "play" with things.

I have lost track on what I did after this to cause the histogram to be so clipped.

Mike

[SlimPaling]

By doing a bit of "cutting & pasting" I have now combined the best of two versions and managed to retain the unclipped histogram (see below) .... I think this version is as good as I am going to get it .... for the time being anyway

Mike