Heart Neb in colour narrowband

[Tom How]

The result of about 6 nights imaging with my Artemis 285 and a 135mm SLR lens.

My first image of this type, so still learning how on earth you are supposed to process them!

Details and full sized image etc....

Astrophotography Blog » New Image: IC1805 in narrowband

[Beyond_Vision]

I havent ventured into narrowband territory as yet so I cant comment on the colour scheme, but you have done a great job of revealing the structure. Keep them coming

Regards

Kevin

[johnh]

Thats an excellent result with the 135mm lens, these lenses are achieving wonderful results on the forums of late. Nice long subs you used and lots of time over many nights. Narrowband is a nightmare to process!

Now for the criticism - I don't really like the magenta star colour so many add a layer of RGB for the stars and there are so many stars close together that really need reducing, these come from the S2 filter which is a problem as they eat up the space where the H alpha detail and dust are. The point of NB is to drastically reduce the stars.

As far as the colour is concerned you'll never satisfy everyone but I feel it is too green/brown, you need to get the little amount of S2 to show as orange not brown while controlling the dominant Ha. The outer parts are still noisy even with all that time, I tend to have much longer S2 like 30min subs and shorter Ha like 5-10min subs with O3 inbetween. S2 needs the most time to reduce noise while Ha will smooth out with less time.

It is also better to average the Ha with the NB to reduce the stars and get back the lost detail of gas and dust. As for assembling the RGB mapped colour I tend to process each first then combine in Maxim then alter the colour balance in ImagesPlus and CS3 using layers to enhance the blue/orange and control the green and bring out the dust by using layer soft light and then sharpening the edges with high pass/smart sharpen. S2 is often so weak that it needs to be processed first to bring it out before combining. Those long S2 subs I suggested will show even bigger stars so they need reducing without damaging the S2 gas structure.

Others may have a different opinion but you can spend forever on these NB images and never satisfy yourself but the extra colour contrast achieved can be worth it when it works.

John.

[Tom How]

You have no idea how much a appreciate some useful feedback like that John!

[Tom How]

I've done a quickly tweaked the colour balance based on some comments I read about changing the colour balance on this type of image

What do you think?

[Moonshane]

this is a beautiful image. is it possible to see this visual with eg an Oiii filter and 12" dob in average skies?

[johnh]

That is a big improvement Tom as the golden S2 contrasts with the richer blue. You have sharpened the edges making the golden orange gas really stands out against the soft blue O3 giving depth of field. Those stars are better controlled and the strong magenta hue toned right down. You have kept some green in the brighter parts with some yellow which I would say is about right. Looks like you have a better feel for it now and the new image looks really pleasing.

Regards, John.

[adamsp123]

That is a stunner of a pic Tom, the second is better IMO.

[anthony]

Agree - a stunning image.