Simeis 57 - The Propeller Nebula

[fireballxl5]

Well this lock-down has given me some time to catch up on data processing and here's one from late last year.

This is my attempt at the Propeller nebula over in Cygnus. I collected the data with my dual rig setup between mid-Aug to Nov, when I had a couple of breaks owing to holidays and significant work commitments.

I usually seem to see false colour narrowband or just Ha versions of this object, but for some reason I went for LRGB with the Ha blended into the red channel using NBRGBCombination in PI.

I always struggle with processing sky backgrounds, especially then there is useful signal lurking there, so please excuse any apparent heavy-handedness. 

Here's a stack of just the Ha, cropped to focus on the Propeller:

LR(Ha)GB image details:

150mm refractor; Lum 62x600s and Ha 11x600s

85mm refractor; Red 24x600s, Green 21x600 and Blue 19x600s

Image scale: ~1.7"/pix with both scopes

Total time 22.8 hours collected over 11 nights during mid-Aug - Nov 2019