Flaming Star and its Blue Dragon

[gorann]

I have long ago exhausted my own pool of data and am waiting for astrodarkness to return in a month or so. Fortunately, the group of Norwegians (including @Ola Skarpen@Xplode) that has set up the SkyEye remote obsy in Spain has kindly let me work on their excellent Ha and RGB data of IC405 collected in February. Thanks a lot guys!!

I put extra emphasis on the blue central structure making sure it did not get overwhelmed by the strong signal in the red and Ha channels. I did not use the Lum data provided as the stars in the Ha and RGB data looked better. Instead I used a bit of Ha as Lum (Ha also mixed 50:50 into the red channel). Aligning and Deconvolution in PI. All the rest in PS CS5. I also made an experiment of only processing the green and blue data to see what it would look like without the Ha/Red signal (although I added RGB data to the stars).

Info: TS Optics Photoline 130 f/6.62 with a Moravian G3-16200 on a 10 Micron GM2000 HPS II. Focal reducer:APM Riccardi 0.75x. Astrodon Blue Tru-Balance E-Series Gen 2: 25x300", Astrodon Green Tru-Balance E-Series Gen 2: 25x300", Astrodon Red Tru-Balance E-series Gen 2: 25x300", Astrodon Ha 3nm 50mm: 190x300". So totally 22.1 hours.

So here is first the HaRGB image and then the blue/green data on its own.

Comments and suggestions most welcome of course. It was for example quite difficult to decide how dusty I would make the image - the Ha data contained a lot of it.

[rwilkey]

Hi Göran, that is absolutely incredible, esp. the blue dragon isolated in the second image, a great piece of processing, well done!

[gorann]

Thanks a lot Robin, much appreciated, particularly as I started worrying that I may have lost it since I had not done any processing for the last couple of months.

[gorann]

I think the dragon may look more dragon like in this orientation (also worked a bit on the colours):

[Rodd]

Well--there are 2 dragons...fighting.  Nice processing.

Rodd

[wimvb]

Excellent, both of them. The blue dragon(s) image is extraordinary. Less than a month left ...

[gorann]

57 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Well--there are 2 dragons...fighting.  Nice processing.

Rodd

 

4 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Excellent, both of them. The blue dragon(s) image is extraordinary. Less than a month left ...

Thanks a lot Rodd & Wim!

When you are low in data, I thought why not take a pick of the colour channes to make more than one image?

Yes Wim, only a month left of astrolightness for us Swedes! And I have a new camera on order - an ASI 071 from FLO......

And after two months of extreme drought and heat (ca 30°C right now) we may get some rain here tonight. Maybe the lawn will turn green again. But obviously the clouds conspired last night and I could not even get a shot at the red moon.

[Allinthehead]

Nice image.

1 hour ago, gorann said:

And I have a new camera on order - an ASI 071 from FLO......

Good choice. You'll love the 071.

[gorann]

7 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Nice image.

Good choice. You'll love the 071.

Thanks - I have a feel good feeling about it!

[MarsG76]

Great detail you got there, Gorann, well done.

[gorann]

40 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

Great detail you got there, Gorann, well done.

Thanks a lot Mars!