The Cat's Paw - 19 Hours

[SkyViking]

Hi All,

A new image from me, finally. I was overseas on holiday in August and since coming back the weather here has not been too favourable so am slowly getting back into things. At least there is always a backlog of data to process.
The Cat's Paw was one of the objects I managed to gather some data for on the side, while working on my Antennae (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=123665) project. In total just over 19 hours was collected on this nebula which was a bit more than planned - but of course some extra data never hurts!
I had good seeing during this time so the result is a fairly high resolution Cat's Paw which I'm pretty happy with. I was also able to tease out some subtle colour nuances in this otherwise predominantly deep red nebula.

Link to full resolution image (7MB) (http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Nebulae/i-g4wRgQq/O)
Link to large version (http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Nebulae/i-g4wRgQq/X3)

About the image
The Cat's Paw Nebula is located among the dense star fields of the southern constellation Scorpius. Being about 5,000 light years distant, in the direction towards our galaxy's crowded central region, it appears visibly reddened by large amounts of interstellar dust that lie between us and the glowing cloud. This gives it a much warmer deep red hue than most other emission nebulae. Some other nebulae which are similarly obscured are the gigantic NGC 3603 in Carina, as well as NGC 6357 (The Lobster Nebula), also in Scorpius.
The Cat's Paw Nebula contains up to 200,000 solar masses of material and is currently undergoing a starburst; producing new stars at a very high rate. These newborn stars are the ones that light up the nebula and cause it to glow with the prominent red colour of hydrogen emission. The starburst activity will likely not last more than a few million years, after which a number of large star clusters will have emerged and replaced the once glowing gas.
The nebula was first noticed by John Herschel in 1837 and its name refers to the distinct likeness with a giant feline paw print, particularly when viewed in wide field images. It is some 50 light years wide and covers an area in our sky equal to that of the full Moon.

Image details
Date: 29th, 30th April and 26th, 27th, 31st May and 3rd, 22nd June and 15th, 17th, 19th, 22nd July 2014
Exposure: LRGB: 600:170:200:180 mins, total 19 hours 10 mins @ -25C
Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

I recommend the full res version linked above, the attached small image doesn't really do it justice. :P
Comments and critique is welcome as always.

Regards,
Rolf

[Rex]

Absolutely stunning Rolf, I love the mottled appearance in the nebula. Great stuff.

[gvanhau]

That's an outstanding image of this subject Rolf. :eyepop:

Like the star and nebula colors, the 19 H did their work here.

Geert

[RickS]

Very impressive, Rolf! A huge amount of detail for a LRGB and great colour.

Cheers,
Rick.

[sjastro]

Excellent image Rolf.

Steven

[Rod771]

Excellent detail! Always enjoy your presentations Rolf, great work! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Great result Rolf, lot's of exposure for sure there mate a wonderful view.

Good to see you got essentially the same colour palette as I did on this too :).

My only feeling is that you have perhaps suppressed the bright areas of the nebulosity a bit too much so it flattens the image a tad but still an excellent image :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ross G]

A beautiful photo Rolf.

So sharp.

I love the colour and composition.

Ross.

[FranckiM06]

Beautiful image :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Superb, Rolf. I particularly like the way you've preserved the colour in the brightest stars. Makes me want to drop some RGB into my narrowband shot. I can see some large faint features in the central region that I've not noticed before. Very fine. Cheers, Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Gorgeous image Rolf! Nice composition, great star colours & and the colours in the neb are nuanced. I agree with Mike though about flattening the highlights - lightening them up a tad will add some more "pop" to the image.

[cometcatcher]

Love the colours. Star colours are beautiful as is the nebula. This one I would consider to be as close to perfection as one can get.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Fantastic Rolf!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Almost too much to take in in the 7 Mb image.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Shiraz]

:thumbsup: very impressive image Rolf - the colour and detail are excellent.

[Ric]

Excellent work Rolf, a spectacular image.

[SkyViking]

Thanks very much Rex, the details came out quite well.


Thank you Geert, I'm glad you liked the colours. This nebula is very red so I did my best to bring out the subtle colour differences that exist.


Thanks a lot Rick, I find that LRGB can reveal quite a decent amount of detail - although a Ha filter would be handy for those moonlit nights :)


Thank you Steven :)


Thanks very much Rod, I'm glad you enjoyed it.


Thank you Mike, yes the overall hues are similar to your version. Not much colour variation across this nebula, it is just so red! :)
Re the bright areas I did experiment with the best stretch, but found that I preferred the deep rich tones over brighter highlights. Perhaps the overall brightness could be lifted, I'll have a think about that :) Thanks for the feedback.


Thank you Ross, I was happy with the crisp detail too - the seeing was pretty good during those nights.
The 7MB image is actually 70% scaled version of the drizzled full res image which has a resolution of 0.43"/pixel. I felt a downsample to 70% was best and hence the final version is 0.62"/pixel.


Thank you Franck! :)


Thanks very much Mike. I love star colours so I always try to bring these out in my images. After all, stars are a major feature in most deep sky images. I'm glad you liked it.


Thank you Marcus, I actually did struggle a little with this composition because I'd have liked to include a little more of the top toe in the 'paw', but at the same time also wanted the intricate areas towards the bottom left. The final image was the best compromise :)
Re the brightness see my comment to Mike above.


Thank you very much Kevin, very kind words indeed :)


Thanks Justin, the large version is quite big but the data could handle it :)


Thank you Ray! :)


Thanks Ric :)

[multiweb]

Really beautiful shot Rolf. One for the cool wall. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

And fair enough too :).. my commenst were certainly not meant to be negative, just friendly musings with another astroimager across the Tasman :thumbsup:

Mike

[SkyViking]

Thanks very much Marc! :thumbsup:


Absolutely Mike, and I appreciate the feedback :)

[strongmanmike]

:love2:

[rustigsmed]

awesome work Rolf, always look forward to seeing what you produce!

Cheers

Russ

[David Fitz-Henr]

Another great image Rolf, deep and excellent detail :thumbsup: At only 19 hours though, not as long as some of your other efforts ... probably can't call it mega-data in your case, perhaps macro-data :question: :rofl:

[SkyViking]

Thank you very much Russel! I have a couple of others in the pipeline, but struggling to find the time for processing at the moment.


Thank you David. Ah yes I do apologise for the scant amount of data this time. Anything under 70 hours is merely a quick snap these days :rolleyes::lol:.