Cocoon and Dust

[Allinthehead]

Hi all, this was shot over 2 nights. The first was 3 hrs on the 4th of September and the second 5 hrs was gathered last night. Last night was very difficult with intermittent cloud and for some reason my goto was way off and i was faffing about for about an hour trying to sort it but it was worth the effort in the end.

Cataloged as IC 5146, the nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide, located some 4,000 light years away. A star forming region of reflection, emmision and absorption type giving the reds, blues and dark dust.  It is located near the naked-eye star Pi Cygni, the open cluster NGC 7209 in Lacerta, and the bright open cluster M39. 

Shot with a Takahashi Epsilon sitting on an Az Eq6 with the Asi 071 pro.

190 * 150 second subs at gain 50 sensor cooled to -5.

Stacked in Astro Pixel Processor

Processed in APP, PI and PS.

Feedback as always appreciated and i hope you like it.

Richard.

jpg for slow connections

Latest Version

[MarsG76]

That looks heaps good... the starfield is crazy dense.... I wonder if the sensitivity of my DSLR will be as good once I cool it?... after all the ASI071 is a APS-C sized OSC CMOS sensor just like a (non full frame) Canon DSLR.

[Demonperformer]

That is good.

The dark patches look to me like the head of a deer(?)-type animal with prominent ears, a bit of a snout and a long tongue reaching out to the cocoon.

What were those mushrooms I had with lunch?

[Allinthehead]

2 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

That looks heaps good... the starfield is crazy dense.... I wonder if the sensitivity of my DSLR will be as good once I cool it?... after all the ASI071 is a APS-C sized OSC CMOS sensor just like a (non full frame) Canon DSLR.

Thanks. Does your dslr have the same sensor? I'm only cooling this to -5 as the benifits of going lower are small versus the risk of fogging up or frost on the sensor. 

[Allinthehead]

1 hour ago, Demonperformer said:

That is good.

The dark patches look to me like the head of a deer(?)-type animal with prominent ears, a bit of a snout and a long tongue reaching out to the cocoon.

What were those mushrooms I had with lunch?

Thanks. Looks like an Anteater.

[MarsG76]

7 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Thanks. Does your dslr have the same sensor? I'm only cooling this to -5 as the benifits of going lower are small versus the risk of fogging up or frost on the sensor. 

I'm not sure if it's the exact same sensor but it is a CMOS APS-C color sensor so at the very least it should be similar.

[Allinthehead]

12 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

I'm not sure if it's the exact same sensor but it is a CMOS APS-C color sensor so at the very least it should be similar.

It will be interesting to see the results?

[MarsG76]

24 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

It will be interesting to see the results?

Me too, can hardly wait to see it run... hopefully I don't destroy the camera...

[Petergoodhew]

Seriously good Richard.  I love the framing. A busy part of space with so much going on.  I wouldn't know where to start with processing such an image!

[Allinthehead]

2 hours ago, Petergoodhew said:

Seriously good Richard.  I love the framing. A busy part of space with so much going on.  I wouldn't know where to start with processing such an image!

Thanks Peter. Yes the star field does create issues that i'm not used to dealing with, such as knowing where to place the eyedropper tool for colour balance and background levels, so i did that bit mostly by eye. I also did two versions,  one for the colour and one for luminance, then combined as if i was using a mono camera.

[tooth_dr]

Deliciously good ? framing and detail are excellent. 

[Allinthehead]

2 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Deliciously good ? framing and detail are excellent. 

Next image will be served with side plate of chilli roast potatoes and veg?. Thanks Adam glad you like it.

[tooth_dr]

5 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

Next image will be served with side plate of chilli roast potatoes and veg?. Thanks Adam glad you like it.

It’s top class as usual Richard ??

[Allinthehead]

I did another version with slight change in colour balance and i used unsharp mask with a mask to protect the core of the stars.

[carastro]

I just zoomed in to look at the nebula more closely and it is stunning.  You should post up a CROP of the Nebula as well.

Carole 

[Allinthehead]

9 minutes ago, carastro said:

I just zoomed in to look at the nebula more closely and it is stunning.  You should post up a CROP of the Nebula as well.

Carole 

Thanks Carole. 

[swag72]

Ooooooooooo...... that's stunning..... love it ????

[RayD]

Excellent, Richard.  Absolutely love it and the FOV is superb, It almost looks like the Cocoon is on fire and moving (top right to bottom left) with a smoke trail.  

Thanks for sharing this.

[ampleamp]

Have always liked this part of the sky and never tried it wide like this. Excellent as always Richard. ??

[Allinthehead]

1 hour ago, swag72 said:

Ooooooooooo...... that's stunning..... love it ????

Thanks Sarah. 

 

47 minutes ago, RayD said:

Excellent, Richard.  Absolutely love it and the FOV is superb, It almost looks like the Cocoon is on fire and moving (top right to bottom left) with a smoke trail.  

Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks Ray. Yes the dust is smokey looking i hadn't  looked at it like that.

 

45 minutes ago, ampleamp said:

Have always liked this part of the sky and never tried it wide like this. Excellent as always Richard. ??

Thanks Alistair. Glad you like it.

[alexbb]

Very nice, Richard! What will you shoot now that the moon is up?

[Allinthehead]

1 hour ago, moise212 said:

Very nice, Richard! What will you shoot now that the moon is up?

Thanks Alex. I'm going to go for the Pacman Nebula in Ha to add to an rgb image. I saw a lovely widefield image of this area with lots of dust, so i'm going to try to capture some of that feint nebulosity surrounding the main nebula itself. I'm excited about this one. You?

[alexbb]

1 hour ago, Allinthehead said:

Thanks Alex. I'm going to go for the Pacman Nebula in Ha to add to an rgb image. I saw a lovely widefield image of this area with lots of dust, so i'm going to try to capture some of that feint nebulosity surrounding the main nebula itself. I'm excited about this one. You?

I asked on this topic as I thought I could influence you to record some Ha too on this area

I'll have a mix of everything for myself, some Orion, some Flame/tadpoles, some H&S.

[Allinthehead]

1 hour ago, moise212 said:

I asked on this topic as I thought I could influence you to record some Ha too on this area

Ah yes. Right over my head that went. I did get ha on this but to be honest i didn't like what it did to the image, and i was happier with the rgb. I'm not sure if my ha data was any good however as i had problems when i gathered it. Here it is if you're interested and if anybody else has some decent ha data i'd love to give it a try.

Cocoon by Richard Sweeney, on Flickr

[alexbb]

A-ha! You had it already. Maybe you need a few more hours, indeed, but I also think the image above is very clean, so it should accept a few more stretches.