The Garnet Star, recycled

[lux eterna]

(The heading was a click bait, admitted. Who would click on just another "Elephants Trunk" ;-)

In lack of fresh data due to perma clouds over my head, I recycled some old data trying to compete with myself and maybe progress some in post processing. I choosed a target that I have found to be very difficult to process, and I think it came out a little better. What do you think ? All suggestions are welcome.

The brightest orange star to the right in my image is a red supergiant called The Garnet Star, or Mu Cephei. It´s a "runaway star", travelling with a speed of 80 km/s relative to the "local average". It also has a spherical shell of ejected material, which expands with 10 km/s. And look at the size (it is the red star in the #6 pic) here. Imagine it being in the position of our Sun, this star would reach somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn.

Oh, and the red blob to the left of the star, I guess you all have seen it a few times ;-)

Imaging was done with a modded Nikon D7000 on a HEQ5 Pro, guided with NexGuider. Today I would have used iso 200 instead of 800.

• Main image is taken with an old Tokina AT-X 250-500mm F5.6 @250mm & F8, iso 800 : 21x10 min (Hutech IDAS LPS-D1 used)
• Small details from my TS APO 700mm F6.5, iso 800 : 26x10 min (Astronomik CLS filter used)

I started from scratch and stacked the 250mm & 700mm subs in different stacks, using Registar & PS. Removed stars with Straton, patched in just a few details from the 700 image, then restored the stars from the "before" image but in a more controlled way. Also used the StarShrink plugin.

Before :

After :

Ragnar

[Knighty2112]

Was just about to boo, then saw the Garnet star was there after all!  Hehe! 

Nice image none the less!  

[lux eterna]

2 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Was just about to boo, then saw the Garnet star was there after all!  Hehe! 

Nice image none the less!  

Thanks Gus. Now when I have learned about the Garnet, it steals my attention when I look at the image. But in a positive way - the star is so beautiful and the facts are so overwhelming.

Ragnar

[Astro Imp]

You old tease Ragnar 

Nice image though.

[lux eterna]

2 hours ago, Astro Imp said:

You old tease Ragnar 

Nice image though.

Thanks Alan