A 28 Hour Tulip. Overcooked?

[DaveS]

This is 6 hours HII, plus 11 hours each [SII] and [OIII] in 10 mins subs through 3nm Astrodons. Initial stacking and RGB assembly followed by DDP in AstroArt 7. 16 bit TIFF into Affinity Photo for magenta removal in channel mixer (Thanks @don4l) followed by selective colour, clarity and a haze removal. Curves were also used to take down a blue-grey haze on the right.

I'm not too worried by the various colour splodges in the background as they're probably genuine structures.

C&C welcome as always.

[Gina]

That's absolutely spectacular Dave!  All those hours of imaging and all the image processing has been well worth it! 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Gina

[Wyvernp]

Absolutely! I don't think its overcooked. Very nice work!

[DaveS]

Thanks both.

I found this version a lot easier to process, probably due to now having enough data, there was much less magenta to get rid of.

[don4l]

Superb detail (especially in the bottom left of the image).  I've never noticed those structures before.

Well done.

[MarkAR]

Excellent.

[DaveS]

I had another go with the colour palette, swapping H and S to make a HSO version, which has been easier to get a neutral background. This was inspired by the alternate Hubble Palette in the image of part of the Veil complex.

[MarkAR]

That really works well for the Tulip, I like it.

[ollypenrice]

OK, honestly I think you're black clipping your data. The Tulip is popping out of nowhere as a nice discrete object but I've been working on this region recently as well and I found it didn't do that in either Ha or OIII. There's a strong low level signal around it and then there's the bow shock from Cyg X-1 which I think must be in your data, most notably in OIII but also in Ha. You're using great filters. I genuinely think there must be more low level signal in your data than is appearing in your images here.

Olly

[DaveS]

Many thanks for the feedback and pointers Olly. I'll go back and have another good look at the data, while keeping a close eye on the black point.

[DaveS]

I was trying to see the shock front but ran into noise problems. I need *more* data

This is the [OIII] on its own given a brutal stretch

I *think* I have just caught one tail of it just coming down from the star top centre, but the bow shock propper is well out of frame. It didn't help that I had an annoying alignment edge right on the top of the frame.

[DaveS]

This is the HSO given a brutal treatment, to the point at which the FPN is showing. DDP and Histo Stretch before RGB assembly, then a gradient removal after cropping followed by white balance and colour balance then another round of histogram stretch. This probably counts as a crime against data.

Looking carefully at the FITS on my monitor I can see a hint of a blue tain coming down from the blue star I cut in half top centre. Need more data. "Same again sir?" "Ta, I don't mind if I do"

[DaveS]

I think I shall revisit this target later in the year when I can capture data under full astro dark. Although I have 3 nm filters, and have 21.66 skies, under nautical dark I think the [OIII] especially will be degraded.

[Gina]

Beautiful images Dave!!    This I'll have to have a go at this object.

[DaveS]

Thanks Gina.