Faint reflection nebulae and dense star fields

[alan4908]

I had quite a few challenges on this particular object which tested my star processing ability. 

The two very faint reflection nebulae (IC4955 and IC4954) that I wanted to image are located in a region of sky that is populated with a huge number of stars. The nebula, which are associated with star formation, are located in the Vupecula constellation and are located on the galactic plane at (l,b) =(66.06, -1.26) degrees about 2000 to 4000 light years away- so you are peering through lots of dust and gas when looking at the objects. This effect creates extinction which makes objects dim but also scatters blue light more than red, shifting the stars to a redder colour.   Since I had a huge number of stars, this red colour effect was significant. So, to get a more pleasing starting point for the star colours, I decided that I'd use an MVO star as the white point reference point in Pixinsight's Photometric Color Calibration tool to minimize extinction effects. 

The image below was taken with my Esprit 150 and represents about 11 hours integration time. 

I haven't seen it before on SGL, so I hope you like it !

Alan

 

LIGHTS: L:21, R:19, G:13, B:15 x 600s, DARKS:30, BIAS:100, FLATS:40 all at -20C. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is superb. Not an object I have seen before, and I would say beautifully processed. The colour looks very natural.

[alexbb]

This is very nice! And refreshing to see something new

[alan4908]

22 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

That is superb. Not an object I have seen before, and I would say beautifully processed. The colour looks very natural.

Thanks for the comment Michael. 

16 hours ago, moise212 said:

This is very nice! And refreshing to see something new

Thanks Alex.  

Yes, even on Astrobin I can only find a handful of images, so it is definitely not be most imaged object in the sky ! 

Alan