IC348, NGC1333 and Olly's Strawberry Nebula

[gorann]

Here is a reprocessed data-set I collected back in February. Yesterday I got inspired by the quite bright image of this area Peter Shah posted on Astrobin. So I made a starless version of my data (Star Xterminator in PS), stretched the nebulosity, and gave it a dose of HiPass filtering in PS. Then I brought the stars back to my liking. The result is a much brighter image with much more visible dust than in my previous attempt to process the data. Processig weak nebulosity on a starless image is so much easier if you aim for the faint stuff. And I am again impressed of how much colour the RASA/ASI2600MC combo sucks out of the dust up there.

It is a two panel mosaic of data collected over three nights of these rather iconic nebulae, IC348(VdB19) and NGC1333. Fortunately these two reflection nebulae are separated by an interesting mix of dark nebulosity, containing several from the Barnard catalogue including Barnard 3 associated with a large patch of Ha nebulosity (this camera is rather good at capturing Ha also without a filter).

Olly Penrice @ollypenrice has pointed out that red Ha nebulosity in LBN749 around Barnard 3 brings a strawberry into mind, and it is easy to agree. So as it has no name maybe we could call it the Strawberry Nebula?

Cheers, Göran

Facts: RASA 8 with ASI260MC on iOptron CEM70. 109 x 240 min (gain 100) so just over 7 hours. Stacked and put together in PI but most of the rest in PS CS5.

Here is the old dark version

Here is the new one stretched and HiPass filtered as starless before the stars were returned.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by gorann

[peter shah]

That's a big difference Goran

[gorann]

1 minute ago, peter shah said:

That's a big difference Goran

Yes Peter, it is. I felt I had to recude saturation a bit since it first just looked too colourful, and maybe it still is. This RASA-ASI2600MC combo just pick up a lot of colour in the dust.

[Tom OD]

Big difference indeed

[clarkpm4242]

Definitely a strawberry!

Very, very much improved.  I'll be trying out the StarXterminator plugin.  Thanks for leading the way.

Paul

[gorann]

1 hour ago, clarkpm4242 said:

Definitely a strawberry!

Very, very much improved.  I'll be trying out the StarXterminator plugin.  Thanks for leading the way.

Paul

Thanks a lot Paul!

Yes, it defenitively opens new doors in processing, at least for me since I never got around to use Starnet++. You may have seen this thread on SGL (that is how I found out about it):

Cheers, Göran

 

[gorann]

11 hours ago, Tom OD said:

Big difference indeed

Thanks Tom, I take that as a poititive remark😉

[Magnum]

very nice and I can see the strawberry, I really like the image, except for 1 little point if im being picky I can see some diagonal walking noise in the lower left 1/4 of the image, ive noticed I got this when I first started using my ASI533, in my data if I dont dither enough, just the nature of fixed pattern noise in cmos I think. but as soon as I increased my dither amount it completely vanished, and not had to deal with it since.

Cheers

Lee

[gorann]

49 minutes ago, Magnum said:

very nice and I can see the strawberry, I really like the image, except for 1 little point if im being picky I can see some diagonal walking noise in the lower left 1/4 of the image, ive noticed I got this when I first started using my ASI533, in my data if I dont dither enough, just the nature of fixed pattern noise in cmos I think. but as soon as I increased my dither amount it completely vanished, and not had to deal with it since.

Cheers

Lee

Hi Lee,

Thanks Lee! I think I see what you mean but I do not think it is walking noise (which I often saw during my DSLR days). I think here it could be real structures in the clouds, especially since it clearly changes direction which walking noise cannot do as far as I under stand it. And why would it only be apparent in that corner? Googling walking noise I found that it is "dark fixed pattern noise of the sensor slowly moving in a consistent direction across the frame over time." The walking noise I have seen from DSLRs is also at a much smaller scale. Or maybe I am not seeing/looking at what you see. Maybe someone has an oppinion.