IC 1396

[Kenza]

Hi all!

This is a bicolor image of the Elephant trunk taken over two nights. H alpha was taken under urban skies while the OIII data was acquired at a darker location in the countryside. It's actually a work in progress. I have just begun. I will be adding much more data as long as the nights remain clear.

The whole imaging process was done in Maxim, while calibration and stacking was done in Pixinsight. Registar was used to align the two channels. Levels, curves, selective color and sharpening was done in PS.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Ha : 12 x 900"

OIII : 7 x 900"

Optics: Equinox 120

Mount : Astrophysics 900 GTO

Camera: ATIK 4000M

 

IC 1396 Bicolor by Aleksandar Topalov, on Flickr

 

[Shibby]

Looking very nice already, considering it's a work in progress!

[Kenza]

Thanks!

 

I was thinking of adding SII data as well but I actually like the way bicolor images have a sort of natural look.

 

[Kenza]

A question for MaximDL users:

How much do you delay between exposures for the guider to settle? I've found that with 5 sec I sometimes get elongated stars so I raised it to 15 sec.

[MartinFransson]

I love bicolour images and I love the IC1396 area so your image is very nice!  When you gather more data, I think the O3 could be pushed a bit harder to bring out the blue colour.