M27 HaLRGB

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Spent a few nights collecting some data on M27 to see if it was possible to get the faint halo (perhaps stupidly, on some of the shortest nights of the year).

It was barely visible in the broadband data, but came out quite clearly in Ha, so that's where I focused a lot of my efforts.

Had a nightmare with the Ha flats which weren't properly correcting the lights. It was especially weird because these were the same flats I had used twice previously with no problems, but anyway, after some reading I reshot the flats and corresponding flat darks with the cooler on and set to same temp. as the lights (previous ones were at room temp. with cooler off) and, hey presto - successful calibration!

Still no idea why the room temp. flats worked fine on the other two images though, so if anyone has any theories, I'd like to hear them. 

On to processing, and it took me ages to find a way of blending the LRGB and Ha in a way which didn't mess up the colours too much - I've settled on this which I'm pretty happy with. As always, any comments or thoughts welcome.

L: 48 x 2 min, R: 15 x 2 min, G: 13 x 2 min, B: 15 x 2 min, Ha: 36 x 5 min. 6 hours, 4 mins total integration time, split pretty much evenly between Ha and LRGB.

 

[AstroMuni]

5 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

On to processing, and it took me ages to find a way of blending the LRGB and Ha in a way which didn't mess up the colours too much - I've settled on this which I'm pretty happy with.

Looks great. Love it. What software did you use for post processing?

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Looks great. Love it. What software did you use for post processing?

 Thanks ☺ All post processing was done in Startools

[bottletopburly]

4 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

 Thanks ☺ All post processing was done in Startools

Wait until you try v 1.8 makes adding nb data so so easy.

[ollypenrice]

Good outer shell! If you use layers to add the Ha, why worry about the flats? You'll only be using the small central part of the Ha image and can ditch the rest.

If you're not using a layers program... you should be! 

Olly

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is really lovely; love the detail in the outer shell. I shot M27 last year with my un-cooled ASI183MC and Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton, with L-eNhance filter, which worked reasonably well, but this year I should follow your example and use the new ASI183MM-Pro with H-alpha filter to get more of the outer shell (which in my shot shows mainly O-III). Your core is also less blown out

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Good outer shell! If you use layers to add the Ha, why worry about the flats? You'll only be using the small central part of the Ha image and can ditch the rest.

If you're not using a layers program... you should be! 

Olly

Thank you! I was reading the unofficial Startools manual which has suggestions for different ways to add Ha to RGB data, and did indeed settle on using layers as the best way.

I use the asi294mm camera, which produces some very interesting patterns on Ha images, so I wanted to make sure they weren't interfering with the image.

That said, it probably would have been fine without any flats - to be honest I think it became more about making sure I could get it to properly calibrate, rather than needing to.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

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

That is really lovely; love the detail in the outer shell. I shot M27 last year with my un-cooled ASI183MC and Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton, with L-eNhance filter, which worked reasonably well, but this year I should follow your example and use the new ASI183MM-Pro with H-alpha filter to get more of the outer shell (which in my shot shows mainly O-III). Your core is also less blown out

Thanks very much. Judging by the responses here this is certainly my most popular image to date, so I've clearly done something right!

I really like the other images I've seen of this target with the huge expansive OIII shell around it, so definitely something I'll be revisiting once I  manage to pick up an OIII filter. 

[The Lazy Astronomer]

4 hours ago, bottletopburly said:

Wait until you try v 1.8 makes adding nb data so so easy.

Interesting! Any news on a potential release date yet? I had heard Ivo was also working on an amazing new deconvolution tool for the next major update too, so looking forward to that

[bottletopburly]

5 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Interesting! Any news on a potential release date yet? I had heard Ivo was also working on an amazing new deconvolution tool for the next major update too, so looking forward to that

Maybe @jager945 can answer that  but I don’t think it will be too long , maybe once any gremlins ironed out Ivo could do a sgl talk to show the new features 🙏🏻 but they are great updates for Startools .