IC 405 - Flaming Star Nebula in HaRGB

[jjosefsen]

Subject details:

IC 405 or The Flaming Star Nebula as it is also known. Is a beautiful and intense region full of rippling gas and dust structures. 
The red color comes from the ionized hydrogen gas, and the faint blueish purple color is blue light of AE Aurigae reflected in the swirling dust.
This exciting piece of space is located in approximately 1500 light years away in the constellation Auriga.

 

Acquisition details:

GSO RC6 on an EQ-6

Altair 115M at -10

Antlia EDGE H-alpha 4.5nm 36 mm: 73×300″(6h 5′) bin 2×2
Optolong Blue 36 mm: 41×120″(1h 22′) bin 2×2
Optolong Green 36 mm: 41×120″(1h 22′) bin 2×2
Optolong Red 36 mm: 42×120″(1h 24′) bin 2×2

 

N.I.N.A. used for acquisition, and processed primarily in PixInsight, with a few touch-ups in Affinity Photo.

I experimented quite a bit with different methods of blending the Ha with the RGB data, and I think I have a pretty good method down now, based on lukomatico's videos on YT.

The real trouble was making sure the Ha didn't completely overwhelm the faint blue reflection from AE Aurigae.

If the weather keeps being this bad, I might reprocess this image almost entirely in Affinity Photo, just to see how that comes out.

 

Thanks for looking!

https://www.astrobin.com/dgwfh9/

[Rodd]

Wow. Very nice. I love RGB, but my sky makes it very tough.  I would love to be able to collect such data. But 1 hour per RGB channel?  I need 6-8 and then the noise is still outrageous. Your image is outstanding.