NGC 7380 Wizard Nebula

[johnrt]

Here is my first attempt at combining data from my mono Atik 314l+ to make a colour image.

It comprises of 10 x 10 minutes Ha data + 14 x 10 minutes of OIII. The OIII was shot under the big fat harvest moon 25/26th Sept. Ha data was acquired under more favourable lunar conditions on the 17/18th Sept.

Total imaging time 4hours.

The combination used to generate the colour image was;

Ha = red, OIII = Green, OIII + 33% Ha = Blue

Camera - Atik 314l+

Scope - WO Megrez 72

Filters - Astronomik 12nm Ha + OIII

Image calibration, combination & processing in Pixinsight.

[johnrt]

Gone for a preprocess on this having had some more time to play around.

This version has Ha mapped to red, OIII + 35% Ha to green and OIII + 25% Ha to blue.

[Tim]

That's one target I havent tried as yet, thanks for the reminder

Hope the little WO is performing well for you John, it looks like it is.

OIII is not the ideal one to go for when the moon is full, it really washes out and you lose detail.

I'm not sure about the stars in the second one though Have you tried the deconvulve tool to tighten them up a little? Use a star mask and play around with the settings a little to get the effect you like.

How does this one look just with the Ha?

[johnrt]

Yeah I'm loving the WO Megrez, cracking little scope!

Take your point on the stars, re-sharpened in decon.

That's one target I havent tried as yet, thanks for the reminder

Hope the little WO is performing well for you John, it looks like it is.

OIII is not the ideal one to go for when the moon is full, it really washes out and you lose detail.

I'm not sure about the stars in the second one though Have you tried the deconvulve tool to tighten them up a little? Use a star mask and play around with the settings a little to get the effect you like.

How does this one look just with the Ha?

[robertm]

That's really excellent, the Wizard is one of my favorite objects. I think I prefer the star colours in the second image though it's going to be difficult getting the colour balance just right what ever way you go.

Robert

[johnrt]

Thank you!

Its all a bit of trial and error. I think I could have upped the saturation of the reds a bit in the second version, but I think there's nearly always something else you should have done!

[johnrt]

I hope no one minds me dragging up my own thread from a couple of weeks ago - but the perma-cloud leaves me with just old data to fiddle with/reprocess and I came up with this.

Hope you like it.

[russ]

can't say i had ever heard of the Wizard Nebula but it looks great, nice image.