Rosette nebula - SHO

[Richard_]

It's been a while since I've posted an image, only because it's taken so long to get enough subs to process

I couldn't quite fit the Rosette nebula into my field of view, so rather than swap from my FLT120 to my Redcat51, I decided it would be a good time to try out a mosaic. This image was a simple 1x2 mosaic captured with Antlia 4.5nm SHO narrowband filters and my QHY268M monochrome camera. There's an almost 50/50 split between panels for total imaging time:

• Panel 1 = 8h50m
• Panel 2 = 8h25m

The OIII data was quite noisy, so it really helped waiting a month of rain and cloud until I could dedicate an entire night to capturing more. It was well worth the wait as the final OIII data was looking much better and the noise between panels was more balanced.

I used the "PhotometricMosaic" script from John Murphy to assemble each monochrome panel which resulted in three master lights (S, H and O). I then created the SHO image using the "NB Colour Map" script within PixInsight using guidance per Adam Block's YouTube channel. Hue and intensity values were assigned to each monochrome channel and a histogram transformation applied to control the amount of blend between the SHO channels. After running colour calibration, the resulting imaging can be somewhat considered as colour accurate (well, more so compared with traditional narrowband palettes!), which is great as you can see more natural red (Hydrogen) and blue (Oxygen) hues from the Rosette nebula. Sulphur is shown as light orange, which can be seen on the tips of Hydrogen gas but is more visible towards the centre of the image around NGC 2244 and NGC 2246.

I may have another play around with the process, but otherwise I'm really pleased with how this project has come out! Comments and constructive critcism are welcome Image acquisition details are on my astrobin per the link below:

https://www.astrobin.com/z36geu/

 

 

[Stargazer33]

That's lovely and crisp, even zoomed right in. Very nice!

[saac]

That is outstanding, it holds such clarity. 

Jim 

[WolfieGlos]

Wow, that’s a superb image of the Rosette.

[ngc1535]

3 hours ago, Richard_ said:

It's been a while since I've posted an image, only because it's taken so long to get enough subs to process

I couldn't quite fit the Rosette nebula into my field of view, so rather than swap from my FLT120 to my Redcat51, I decided it would be a good time to try out a mosaic. This image was a simple 1x2 mosaic captured with Antlia 4.5nm SHO narrowband filters and my QHY268M monochrome camera. There's an almost 50/50 split between panels for total imaging time:

• Panel 1 = 8h50m
• Panel 2 = 8h25m

The OIII data was quite noisy, so it really helped waiting a month of rain and cloud until I could dedicate an entire night to capturing more. It was well worth the wait as the final OIII data was looking much better and the noise between panels was more balanced.

I used the "PhotometricMosaic" script from John Murphy to assemble each monochrome panel which resulted in three master lights (S, H and O). I then created the SHO image using the "NB Colour Map" script within PixInsight using guidance per Adam Block's YouTube channel. Hue and intensity values were assigned to each monochrome channel and a histogram transformation applied to control the amount of blend between the SHO channels. After running colour calibration, the resulting imaging can be somewhat considered as colour accurate (well, more so compared with traditional narrowband palettes!), which is great as you can see more natural red (Hydrogen) and blue (Oxygen) hues from the Rosette nebula. Sulphur is shown as light orange, which can be seen on the tips of Hydrogen gas but is more visible towards the centre of the image around NGC 2244 and NGC 2246.

I may have another play around with the process, but otherwise I'm really pleased with how this project has come out! Comments and constructive critcism are welcome Image acquisition details are on my astrobin per the link below:

https://www.astrobin.com/z36geu/

 

 

Beautiful work on this image!

-adam

 

 

[Richard_]

Thanks for you kind comments. This is the beauty of doing a mosaic, you can zoom in and still keep good image quality.

5 hours ago, ngc1535 said:

 Beautiful work on this image! 

-adam

Thanks Adam! The NB Colour Map script is great, I'm looking forward to using it more in the future.

[Lee_P]

Good job! I've never been brave enough to make a mosaic 😂

[Richard_]

54 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Good job! I've never been brave enough to make a mosaic 😂

Thanks Lee! I'd say go for it, I can see the title of your next review being "shooting a 4 panel mosaic from a high light pollution city centre, with full moon and fog" just to see how the purists react 😂

On a more serious note, with your OSC it's a bit more straight forward as you won't have to faff around with different filters.

However, the big question is "should I evenly spread my time across multiple panels, or should I concentrate all my time on one panel" and I totally get that. I guess it depends on the target and your patience!

[Sunshine]

This is simply beautiful!