Pacman (close up)

[alan4908]

I've always found the Pacman nebula (NGC281) very difficult to process in RGB since I always tend to end up with a low contrast image that is largely devoid of detail.  So, since I prefer realistic looking colours, I decided to try out a narrow band approach with Red mapped to Ha and Blue mapped to OIII.  After balancing the Ha and OIII data in Pixinsight via Linear Fit, I generated a synthetic green in PS via Carboni's actions.  The result below represents 15 hours integration time and was taken with my Esprit 150.  To illustrate the amount of detail revealed, I've also included a small crop of the central region.

Alan

NGC281

NGC281 (crop)

 

LIGHTS: 9 Ha, 21 OIII x 1800s, DARKS:30, BIAS:1000, FLATS:40 all at -20C. 

[PhotoGav]

That has worked extremely well Alan, there's real depth there - beautiful! Who doesn't love a Bok Globule?!!?

[swag72]

I like that  - You have some nice depth to an object that can often appear rather flat.... Love the colour scheme too

[Craney]

Really, really good.

In my images of the Pacman, the dark areas look like holes through the pink nebula,  whereas yours show their true character.

[tooth_dr]

Fabulous, what detail and depth.  PS love the Bok globules myself too?

[Mr Spock]

Great looking image. Your processing has worked really well.

[alan4908]

5 hours ago, PhotoGav said:

That has worked extremely well Alan, there's real depth there - beautiful! Who doesn't love a Bok Globule?!!?

Thanks Gav. Yes, I found that the Pixinsight script Dark Structure Enhance really helped in highlighting these objects.

4 hours ago, swag72 said:

I like that  - You have some nice depth to an object that can often appear rather flat.... Love the colour scheme too

Thank you Sara 

4 hours ago, Craney said:

Really, really good.

In my images of the Pacman, the dark areas look like holes through the pink nebula,  whereas yours show their true character.

Thanks - yes, I was a little surprised by how well the Dark areas are defined.

3 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Fabulous, what detail and depth.  PS love the Bok globules myself too?

Thanks - Yes the BG's are good 

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Great looking image. Your processing has worked really well.

Thanks Michael - this was the first time I've attempted this particular narrowband workflow. 

Alan

[Allinthehead]

That's beautiful Alan. Great detail.

[alan4908]

9 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

That's beautiful Alan. Great detail.

Thanks Richard !