Chalice Nebula

[Placidus]

The Chalice Nebula, Henize 206, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, over two recent rare and miraculously clear but moonlit nights.

Big one here. (www.mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-qjhthB3/0/O/Z%20Chalice%20Nebula%20Henize%20206 %20Ha%20OIII%20SII%204hrs%20each.jp g)

Looks much more like a jewel filled Grail than say Aquarius looks like a water carrier.

Hubble palette: Red SII, Green H-alpha, Blue OIII, 4 hours each with 3nM filters. Aspen CG16M at -30C unbinned, on 20" PlaneWave. 1-hour subs. Field about 30 min arc, 0.55 sec arc/pixel.

Notice the wonderful supernova remnant looking like a crinkly doughnut in front of the left hand edge of the base of the Chalice. The SNR is comparatively strong in SII (red), indicating stellar innards).

Processed entirely in my very own GoodLook 64 free to a good home if you do this sort of image and if you send me an email.

Some wavelet sharpening at the very end. To make the generally weak SII more obvious without ending up with a billion red micro-stars, I prepared two versions: one with the red pushed hard, the other more straight up. I then used a mask based on regional brightness to combine the two versions, holding the red back in the dark suburbs.

Cheers,
Mike (processing)
Trish (scope operator)

[Slawomir]

Great team work Mike and Trish and a very nice result :thumbsup:

Your software is clearly working very well.

Maybe just the nebula is a bit too dark and the supernova remnant could stand out a bit more :question:

[Ryderscope]

I'm not sure which impresses me most - the capture and processing of such a fine nebula or the achievement in finding two clear nights (moon present or otherwise) :D.

Thanks for the journey MnT and the great description as it makes one appreciate the image even more so.

[strongmanmike]

Fabulous image Mike and Trish :thumbsup: Totally see the chalice too :)

Mike

[multiweb]

That's a superb photo Mike. High res is superb. Very smooth. Good on you for sticking it up to the moon and clouds. Another one for the cool wall. Glad to see the new software working flawlessly. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Thanks, Slawomir. You've persuaded me that the nebula needs to be a bit brighter, but I'm anxious about making the background too overpowering. The revised original link (www.mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-qjhthB3/0/O/Z%20Chalice%20Nebula%20Henize%20206 %20Ha%20OIII%20SII%204hrs%20each.jp g) should now show the nebulosity, but not the background, as being about 50% brighter, not much, but something.

Best,
Mike

[Placidus]

Thanks muchly, Rodney. It has been a grim and frustrating summer, but the water tanks are full. (Yours too, probably, being just round the corner).




Thanks Mike. Hope I was sufficiently restrained with the sharpening. :)



Cheers, Marc. Thrilled that you like it.

Best,
M & T

[Somnium]

really lovely image guys, great work

[Stevec35]

Nice one Mike and Trish and yes, it does look like a chalice, although given that I watched a documentary on atom bombs recently it does vaguely resemble a mushroom cloud.

Cheers

Steve

[RickS]

Lovely work, M&T, and congrats on finding some clear sky. Looks like a smurf to me :) Interesting to compare it to these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henize_206#/media/File:Ssc2004-04a.jpg

Have you thought about doing the colour processing with stars removed? That's another way to avoid all the tiny red dots - and big magenta stars. A really good star removal algorithm would make GoodLook quite popular with tone mappers :thumbsup:

Cheers,
Rick.

[Andy01]

Looks great guys!

That's a new one that I havn't seen that one before - and even after exhaustive searching, I still can't see it on any of my usual charts or planetarium software!
I only found a reference to H 206 as being Ra 05 31 17 Dec -71 07 00 is that it?

Anyway, it's a lovely image guys, well done! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Yeah looks great in that regard the Sidondeconator didn't register a thing :P

Mike

[Placidus]

Thanks, Steve. We've been growing our own (standard legal button) mushrooms lately, with some success. Perhaps that's it.



Thanks, Rick. Your knowledge is encyclopaedic and very much appreciated. So the whole thing is in some senses a very late stage supernova remnant.

I've spent many hours thinking about how to completely remove stars. Finding it quite tricky. The big ones are easy to find, but hard to remove, because their halos go such a long way and can overlap. Mid-size ones are straightforward. The tiny ones are easy to find and easy to remove, but hard to tell apart from local peaks in the nebulosity. Getting there, very slowly. Learning how is on the list.



Thanks, Andy. Yes, you've got the right coordinates. Looking forward to seeing your (gentle, subtle) version.



Phew!


Cheers,
M

[gregbradley]

A beautiful image of an interesting object Mike.

Greg.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Greg.

We did this one with the STL-11000M back in December 2012, and we thought it was pretty cute then. But over the intervening three years, we've learned to focus better, to dither between images, and most recently, to use a 24 inch electro-luminescent panel to do better flats. Finally we replaced the Hederick focuser which was becoming wobbly with 5 years of service. Adding in the old data just made the current image worse!

Best,
Mike

[Paul Haese]

Great detail and star colour MnT.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Paul.

[Atmos]

Lovely image there MnT, new one to me too! To me it looks like a green hand moving up to grab a blue gem :)

[topheart]

Awesome image M+T !!

1 hour subs.....good stuff....great tracking going on for sure!

Great rendition and processing too.

A show stopper indeed!

Thanks,
Tim

[gary]

Wonderful image. Thanks for posting it.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Tim. We are much encouraged. With very black skies, narrowband, and faint targets, the 1 hour subs really help. At -30C the marginal improvement over half an hour isn't huge.



Cheers, Gary. Delighted.

Best,
M & T

[Atmos]

I guess it is all about getting above read noise for all that faint stuff :)