Rosette Nebula - first HaRGB image

[Padraic M]

Like with a lot of other people, 2020 saw me spend more time and effort buying and tuning gear than actually using it...! I was stacking up learning curves waiting patiently for clear skies to get some actual deep-sky practice in.

Over the New Year, I managed to get some time in Bortle 2, and the sky finally cleared for a few full nights last week. The first few nights were spent getting everything to work together, building on my Ha narrowband monochrome work during the last year, and adding RG and B to the processing mix. A new Sesto Senso arrived for Christmas, so that has made a massive difference to image quality.

I'm happy to say that I've managed to get my first full-colour HaRGB shot. While there's still plenty of room for improvement, I'm delighted with the results.

This is 4 hours of Ha, and 1 hr 9 mins in total of RGB. I still have some guiding problems with my mount that need to be sorted out, so some of the Green and many of the Blue frames were unusable. 

Channels stacked in DSS and processed in Gimp. Stars removed from the RGB composite in Starnet, but not from Ha Luminance. Finally, noise removed in Noise Ninja and the whole thing binned x2.

Suggestions and criticism welcome!

Full image on Astrobin: https://astrob.in/h3tmbl/0/

Padraic.

SW Esprit 80
SWO ASI1600mm unbinned at -20C
ZWO EFW Mini with Baader Ha 3.5nm and Baader RGB filters
Primalucelabs Sesto Senso 2 electronic focuser
Altair Astro 50mm guidescope with ZWO ASI290mm Mini guidecam
HEQ5 Pro rowan-mod mount
APT, PS2 and Stellarium.

Processed with DSS, Gimp, Starnet and  Noise Ninja

48x300 Ha | 15x150 Red | 10x150 Green | 3x150 Blue

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Very nice image 🙂 

Steve

[Xsubmariner]

You should be pleased, a great first colour image.

[Messy Hair 101]

Having played around with the rosette and HaRGB, I appreciate how well you've done here! I do love the detail and structure you get from Ha. Curious to see how it will look if you can gather more colour data. I have a very similar setup although using a 183MM pro and just a ED80 Pro rather than Esprit.

[Padraic M]

@Messy Hair 101 Thanks, it just kind of 'popped' into place for me. The benefits of a very clear sky! If I get more time this week I'll look to getting more RGB data.