M27 The Dumbell Nebula

[Roy Foreman]

Finally, a start to the new season of imaging for me.  Skies are still not really dark, there is a moon lurking low in the sky and, most significantly, truck loads of moisture in the air creating a hazy veil through which I am trying to image.

However, here is an image of M27 taken with the 16" Newt and ZWO 6200 MC Pro.

A 65% / 35% blend of RGB and Dual Band O3 / Ha filters

Stacked in Affinity Photo and processed in Photoshop

Maybe not the best image of M27 ever taken, but a personal best for me so far.

Hope you enjoy.

[Notty]

Great image, thanks for sharing. Didn’t know affinity pro did stacking either- just curious, did you use DSS previously and moved to it?

[Roy Foreman]

Yes you are exactly right - I was using DSS but found that it was generating too many processing artefacts.  Short red, blue and green streaks,  web like structures connection stars in objects like globular clusters, and high levels of noise.  Affinity does a much better job with none of these artefacts appearing so far, and gives better density, colour correction, background, and less noise. This is only my experience, but I hope it is useful to you.

[peter shah]

lovely detail and the outer shell is starting to show

[Roy Foreman]

Thank you Peter. Recording the outer shell is a milestone for me. If only my skies were less murky. One day I'll crack it !

[Notty]

On 20/07/2021 at 19:26, Roy Foreman said:

Yes you are exactly right - I was using DSS but found that it was generating too many processing artefacts.  Short red, blue and green streaks,  web like structures connection stars in objects like globular clusters, and high levels of noise.  Affinity does a much better job with none of these artefacts appearing so far, and gives better density, colour correction, background, and less noise. This is only my experience, but I hope it is useful to you.

Fascinating, thanks. I use Affinity for terrestrial but never occurred to me it could stack. I’ve got some strangeness happening with DSS so if I do t get to the bottom I may investigate.