VdB132/NGC6914 in two versions.

[ollypenrice]

After Vdb123, why not Vdb132? 😁 The reflection nebula is NGC6914.

The first is a widefield OSC imaged with Paul Kummer, using his RASA8-ASI2600MC on my Avalon Linear. 75x3 minutes. After ABE in Pixinsight, processing was all Photoshop. There's no NB data in this.

Then there's a closer look made by combining old TEC140 HaLRGB data with a crop from the image above, weighted about 50-50. An enormous amount of signal but I failed to note down the exposure time of the TEC image. Interestingly, though, the blue reflection nebula was roundlly better in the RASA, so much so that I included no TEC data for that part.

Olly

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by ollypenrice

[gorann]

Brilliant image Olly! The dark nebulosity is strikingly sharp, as if you had sneaked in some NB data, but I trust you😄. I have seen the blue reflection nebula (NGC6914) called "The Running Man in Cygnus" (https://www.astrobin.com/f3dspw/), and it does show similarities to the much bigger running man in Orion.

Göran

[ollypenrice]

20 minutes ago, gorann said:

Brilliant image Olly! The dark nebulosity is strikingly sharp, as if you had sneaked in some NB data, but I trust you😄. I have seen the blue reflection nebula (NGC6914) called "The Running Man in Cygnus" (https://www.astrobin.com/f3dspw/), and it does show similarities to the much bigger running man in Orion.

Göran

Thanks. Why would NB sharpen the dark nebulosity, though? When I played around with it on the close-up image I found it rather softened the dark dust because the Ha had picked up some signal which seemed to overlap it, slightly reddening its edges. I see the dust in the Ha as softer and more nuanced than in broadband.

Olly

 

 

[gorann]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Thanks. Why would NB sharpen the dark nebulosity, though? When I played around with it on the close-up image I found it rather softened the dark dust because the Ha had picked up some signal which seemed to overlap it, slightly reddening its edges. I see the dust in the Ha as softer and more nuanced than in broadband.

 

Olly

 

 

Not sure why it happens but adding Ha to images often makes the structure of the dark nebulosity much more clear in my experience. I guess it has to do with the atmosphere having less impact on the Ha data, making it sharper.

[symmetal]

That's looking great Olly particularly as it's RGB and mainly Photoshop. 🤗

My third RASA 8 arrived this afternoon after my second flarey one was returned last week. Celestron told FLO that they have personally checked the latest one and it doesn't have the flare issue so fingers crossed. Celestron were initially of the opinion that the flare issue was limited to US delivered scopes, having checked a sample of UK bound scopes and found them all good. After FLO told them that at least two were bad, (mine) they are being more thorough in testing.

Don't know when I can test it out though as the future weather outlook isn't good. 😟

Alan

[gorann]

Olly, you inspired me to have another look at my Esprit image of this area from 2020, and to reprocess it using StarXTerminator. Made quite a difference(https://www.astrobin.com/ckh269/C/), so I should probably go through all my pre-starless-era images. I may be done in a year if I get enough cloudy nights🤔

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, gorann said:

Olly, you inspired me to have another look at my Esprit image of this area from 2020, and to reprocess it using StarXTerminator. Made quite a difference(https://www.astrobin.com/ckh269/C/), so I should probably go through all my pre-starless-era images. I may be done in a year if I get enough cloudy nights🤔

I certainly prefer the revamp. Your rendition and mine are most unalike with yours having much more hydrogen and mine having more obscuring dust.  What combination of filters went into yours, Goran?

Olly

PS I put some thoughts on exploiting star removeal-replacement here: 

 

[gorann]

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I certainly prefer the revamp. Your rendition and mine are most unalike with yours having much more hydrogen and mine having more obscuring dust.  What combination of filters went into yours, Goran?

Olly

PS I put some thoughts on exploiting star removeal-replacement here: 

 

I just checked my notes. Like you, no filters. A dual rig with an Esprit 150 and Esprit 100 on my Mesu. I had my ASI 6200 MM (so full size APS) collecting Lum (120 x 2 min) on the Esprit 150 and 58 x 5 min RGB with  an ASI071 OSC (now sold) on the Esprit 100. So totally 8.8 hours.

Edited September 29, 2022 by gorann

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, gorann said:

I just checked my notes. Like you, no filters. A dual rig with an Esprit 150 and Esprit 100 on my Mesu. I had my ASI 6200 MM (so full size APS) collecting Lum (120 x 2 min) on the Esprit 150 and 58 x 5 min RGB with  an ASI071 OSC (now sold) on the Esprit 100. So totally 8.8 hours.

Thanks. In that case I'm truly mystified by the difference.

Olly

[gorann]

37 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Thanks. In that case I'm truly mystified by the difference.

Olly

Well after you and me left the linear image and started stretching our data with rather subjective curves (at least in my case - I go for whatever looks like an improvement) and used various kinds of procedures, I am not surprised that we ended up quite differently. For example one filter I used in my last processing attempt was Camera Raw in PS and I used its sliders to reduce the contrast and slightly increase highlights.  A rather new procedure to me and I have no idea about the algorithms behind it, but I liked what it did.....

[peter shah]

Wonderful shot Olly

[MartinB]

The first image is particularly striking Olly.  The ghostly reflection nebulosity which pervades the image is what makes it special for me.