IC 1805 "Heart Nebula" in HST palette

[GordonH]

Hi all

Last night was absolutely freezing but at least the sky was clear, I managed to get 2 hours for each filter in 10 minute unguided subframes before it sank too low in the sky.

It was taken with my TMB 115 f7 with matching field flattener, FLI filter wheel with astronomik Ha, OIII and SII filters, Starlight Xpress H36 camera and Paramount ME. I used simple autodark subtraction in Maxim DL and no flats or bias frames were used. It was combined as an RGB image using the HST palette with a weighting of 3:1:2 for the respective RGB channels.

I have posted the full widefield image here but I have posted a couple of cropped closeups on my website http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk to show the central core of the nebula and also the "Ghost Nebula" in more detail

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon

:sunny:

[MartinB]

Excellent Gordon, you've pulled out some great detail with that shot

[Doc]

Gordon your work always amazes me.

Fantastic detail and colours.

[Psychobilly]

Incredible detail in there Gordon, Another up to your usuall incredibly high standards

Billy...

[GordonH]

Hi All

Thanks for the comments, I often (always) get constructive criticism about my narrowband images because the apparent lack of red (SII) in my HST palette images from Richard Crisp http://www.narrowbandimaging.com as he feels my data is good but somewhat lacking in red. I put this down to various reasons such as relative short exposure times, not enough subframes for SII and as I have recently learnt, the Starlight Xpress H36 camera is lower in sensitivity in SII than in the other emission lines, hence most of my images are a bit greener than they should be. I am waiting with baited breath for his comments on this one but as it is tipping it down tonight I thought I would have a go at tweaking it and so using some minor levels and colour balance adjustments I have boosted the red and eased off on the green a bit. The tweaked version is suffering from pinker stars but that is a sacrifice you have to pay when using the HST palette (The infamous Pillars of creation image from the HST itself is testament to this). I have posted the tweaked image here for comparison with the original. I wouldf be interested to hear peoples views.

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon