M78 Reflection Nebula

[WolfieGlos]

I think I may have finally finished this image. Due to the poor weather we have all sadly been familiar with, I initially started this back in November and captured 3.5 hours in a single night. Since then, spread across another EIGHT sessions, I managed to get another 11.5 hours. Even this week has been hit and miss, from a forecast (even on the day) predicting clear skies, only one session on this target was possible this week due to the proximity of the Moon - another 3.5 hours captured on Wednesday which were slightly overexposed, so the first and last sessions have been by far the most productive.

Enough moaning.

Using the usual Canon 800D + Starfield 102 with 0.8 reducer (no filters) this image comprises 425 x 120s light frames (15:04:00 hours) at ISO-400. Stacked in Siril with corresponding darks and flats for each session.

Framed to capture M78 and a part of Barnards Loop, I also wanted to capture the small "cluster" of bright stars in the top left corner to add something different to the image.

I found this to be a hard target to process, the hardest to date, and I think that that's mostly to bring out the dust to a satisfactory level whilst controlling noise. The original incarnation was the fourth version of this I had processed, still wasn't 100% happy but then again another 15 hours would really help here! With a fairly slow scope at f/5.6, it'll make me think twice before taking on dark nebulae.......

Multiple updates from the following posts, the latest version is now on it's 4th incarnation (!). This has been, as Olly corrected noted below....a devil to process!

Thanks for viewing, hope you like it and comments welcome 🙂

EDIT: VERSION 4 - colour balance corrected, Ha and Blue's boosted.

Original Version:

 

 

Edited January 28 by WolfieGlos
Version 4 (!) added

[Roy Foreman]

Looks good.  M78 has been on my 'to do' list for a while. Your rendition has inspired me to move it up the list !

[geeklee]

11 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Since then, spread across another EIGHT sessions

Great perseverance Chris and its paid off on this tricky object.  Super framing and detail too. 

[mackiedlm]

I think thats first rate- nice definition and colour - well done

[WolfieGlos]

14 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

Looks good.  M78 has been on my 'to do' list for a while. Your rendition has inspired me to move it up the list !

Thanks Roy, can’t wait to see what you can do with this one! The nebula shows up quite well, but it’s that dust that teases you and it kept me coming back for more data! I did have a version with a larger stretch, but it was too noisy and mottled.

12 hours ago, geeklee said:

Great perseverance Chris and its paid off on this tricky object.  Super framing and detail too. 

Thanks Lee, much appreciated. It’s certainly more tricky than it looks!

6 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

I think thats first rate- nice definition and colour - well done

Thank you again, you’re too kind! 

[WolfieGlos]

Well the clouds (and rain) persist here, so I decided to go back and tidy this one up a bit after noticing a bit too much green in the original image. I also managed to reduce the noise (particularly in the dust) and also boosted the saturation for Barnards Loop.

Still undecided whether to pump in more hours on this one, then again some clear skies would be a starting point. Either way, I'm happier with this version, hopefully you all agree 🙂

Thanks for looking. Also added to OP.

Edited January 26 by WolfieGlos

[Roy Foreman]

This version definitely goes a bit deeper than the first. I'd be happy with that result. No clear skies forecast for a while so you might have to settle for what you have so far.

[WolfieGlos]

3 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

This version definitely goes a bit deeper than the first. I'd be happy with that result. No clear skies forecast for a while so you might have to settle for what you have so far.

Thanks Roy! Sadly I think you're right, possibly clear here tonight for a few hours, but a near full Moon is no good.

[tomato]

Top notch, it's a great FOV  with the Ha arc coming in on the RHS.👍

[WolfieGlos]

8 hours ago, tomato said:

Top notch, it's a great FOV  with the Ha arc coming in on the RHS.👍

Thanks tomato 🙂 I used your image in the showcase thread for processing inspiration on the nebula itself, that was a great image you produced 👍

[ollypenrice]

Very good. M78 is an absolute devil of a thing to image in my view. I seem to remember Steve Richards saying the same.

The one bit I'd be inclined to work on would be the large, bright blue patch of nebulosity. I bet you could get more structure out of it if you held the brightness down, and more colour as well.

Anyway, this is a good result on a tough target.

Olly

[WolfieGlos]

4 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Very good. M78 is an absolute devil of a thing to image in my view. I seem to remember Steve Richards saying the same.

The one bit I'd be inclined to work on would be the large, bright blue patch of nebulosity. I bet you could get more structure out of it if you held the brightness down, and more colour as well.

Anyway, this is a good result on a tough target.

Olly

Thanks Olly! I couldn't agree more, and I too had read somewhere that this was a difficult one (it may have been on CN a while back), so when the nebula showed up really well after only 1 hour of imaging I thought someone had been over exaggerating. What they probably had meant, was the actual post-processing.

Thanks for the critique, I revisited the data for this and you are right, I seem to have lost a lot of detail in the core of the nebula along the way. I suspect this was the histogram / GHS stretches whilst trying to bring out the dust. Whilst I did protect the highlights in the GHS, it wasn't enough and was possibly already lost on the partial histogram stretch beforehand, so it looks like I missed this all along. Good spot - and thanks 👍 I also noticed whilst doing this that the stars at the core had changed from orange to pure white, so that adds a tad more colour to it as well.

Instead of processing from scratch, I've applied some basic stretches to the original data and masked+brushed it into the area affected.

I can see myself re-visiting this one for processing again in the future. Whilst I feel I have a good image, I don't feel like it's quite there and I can't put my finger on why at the minute.

[ollypenrice]

6 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

I can see myself re-visiting this one for processing again in the future. Whilst I feel I have a good image, I don't feel like it's quite there and I can't put my finger on why at the minute.

I think it's pretty damned close. I still think the blues would stand more saturation and, in Photoshop, I would use Selective Colour to lower the cyans in red. This is a demon tweak for anything Ha.

Olly

[WolfieGlos]

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I think it's pretty damned close. I still think the blues would stand more saturation and, in Photoshop, I would use Selective Colour to lower the cyans in red. This is a demon tweak for anything Ha.

Olly

Thanks Olly, I see what you mean in the Ha area. I’ll take a look later. Happy to share the linear stack if you wanted a go at the devil target 😉

[ollypenrice]

13 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

Thanks Olly, I see what you mean in the Ha area. I’ll take a look later. Happy to share the linear stack if you wanted a go at the devil target 😉

Love to. The joys of our new fibre internet!!

Olly

[WolfieGlos]

14 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I think it's pretty damned close. I still think the blues would stand more saturation and, in Photoshop, I would use Selective Colour to lower the cyans in red. This is a demon tweak for anything Ha.

Olly

Thanks Olly, it looks much better with the colour balance tweak by reducing the cyans - I think that that's done it.

Much better colour in the Ha, and also boosted the blue in the core of M78 as you described. Worked a charm 😁

Look forward to seeing how you get on with my stack 🙂

[ollypenrice]

10 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Thanks Olly, it looks much better with the colour balance tweak by reducing the cyans - I think that that's done it.

Much better colour in the Ha, and also boosted the blue in the core of M78 as you described. Worked a charm 😁

Look forward to seeing how you get on with my stack 🙂

Now that's great. If I'd known you were going to get it as good as that I wouldn't have dared play with your data!   I certainly can't beat it and not for want of trying. 

Very good data and guests have brought much worse LP down here, I promise you.

Olly

 

Edited January 29 by ollypenrice

[carastro]

Excellent result.  Well Done.

[Mr Spock]

Excellent image. M78 has to be a firm favourite and it looks good here.

[sinbad40]

That is excellent.  Not over cooked with colour and the dust stands out very well.

[WolfieGlos]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Now that's great. If I'd known you were going to get it as good as that I wouldn't have dared play with your data!   I certainly can't beat it and not for want of trying. 

Very good data and guests have brought much worse LP down here, I promise you.

Olly

 

Wow, thanks Olly. 

3 hours ago, carastro said:

Excellent result.  Well Done.

Thanks Carole! Got there in the end.

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Excellent image. M78 has to be a firm favourite and it looks good here.

Thanks Michael.

2 hours ago, sinbad40 said:

That is excellent.  Not over cooked with colour and the dust stands out very well.

Thanks sinbad!