NGC6164 a delicate flower like nebula

[gregbradley]

This has always been a fascinating object. Delicate flower like structure and shockwaves from the powerful O type star that irradiates it that is 40 times more massive than our Sun.

Taken with 3 telescopes and 3 cameras, 3 mounts.

Ha O111 LRGB 11hours and 10 minutes total.

http://www.pbase.com/image/163540094/large


http://www.pbase.com/image/163540094/original


Greg.

[Atmos]

It is a lovely region Greg and nicely handled. The shock wave interaction towards the bottom of the stellar region is fascinating :)

[RickS]

Very nice, Greg! Lots of dim Oiii visible for a relatively short total integration.

[marc4darkskies]

A nice looking image of an interesting object Greg! :thumbsup:

Consider getting rid of the blue cast perhaps? RGB stars will look richer. You seem to have black clipped your red channel as well - sorry :scared3:

[Andy01]

The cosmic coffee bean!
Nice image Greg, does look a bit blue but it's so pretty, like a backlit neon :)

[gregbradley]

It is and from what I have read the theory is the shockwaves are from an early stage of the Type O stage development. Obviously its blown its stack at some point. Its a supernova candidate in the future.



Life is fast at F3.8 and also at 17 inches of aperture! Thanks Rick.



Thanks for the critique. I revisited it and fixed the clipped red. I found out which step did that it was the colour balance tool. Blue is a bit more balanced but still quite a bit of it. This is a Ha O111 LRGB image so its more narrowband than RGB (LRGB just for the stars really) so the blue is part of the O111 data as far as I can see. Cheers Marcus



Thanks Andy. I looked at the blue again and its pulled back more. I think its correct now for the Ha O111 data set I have. Thanks Andy. Same link.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes, the good'ol 6164, always worth a poke this time of year, nice job :thumbsup:

Mike



I only see two cameras and two scopes in the image credits though :shrug:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike. I updated the list.

Greg.

[Placidus]

You've convinced me that the large, faint patches of OIII at 10 o'clock and 11:30 and almost at the edge are real. Because of our smaller FOV I'd dismissed it as bad flats.

Best,
Mike

PS: I've just seen what you mean by a delicate flower-like nebula. The two faint patches I mentioned are petals. There are more. Never seen that before.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike. I just checked the O111 master again and it definitely shows that area as brightish compared to the rest of the frame.

Also I realised this is actually 4 cameras, not 3. The FLI Proline 16803/CDK17 for some Ha, The Trius 694/RHA Ha and O111, ST8300/RHA full set, Microline 8300/TEC180 full set. I think the total exposure time may be longer than I added up. There was a lot of data from the Trius, several nights worth and its about the most sensitive CCD there is in O111 at about 66%QE plus the F3.8 of the RHA it picks up a lot very quickly.

Greg.

[lazjen]

Not much I can add other than: nice image, I like it.

I'd like to see a "closer view" though of the centre - it looks just as interesting in itself.

[Retrograde]

Beautifully done as usual Greg. That shockwave really is something.

[Paul Haese]

Colour is ok Greg in my opinion. I found that when I did this I got a similar cast top and bottom and put it down to gradients at the time but since then I have seen a few images with a similar look. No doubt there is a lot of Ha one side and on the other a lot of OIII on this target. In the end I chose a slightly less blue colour palette but I think you are reasonably close to what comes out of the camera.

Your detail levels are not bad either, though I suspect you are hampered by the lowest resolution setup. I reckon it would be preferable to image with the CDK for get maximum resolution at your dark sky location. Its a wonderful object up close and worth putting in the hours at a higher resolution.

Still some noise drifting around, but I found I had to do a lot of hours before it started to diminish. I am betting most of the noise is from the OIII as I found it very noisy.

Overall I like the look of the image, but would like to see you get a lot more data yet. :)

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that. I'll do a crop, yes I agree there is some great detail in there from the CDK17 data.



A nice compliment - thank you. The shockwave is amazing. It reminds me of Vela.




Thanks Paul. More is always good for sure. I agree the CDK could do an even nicer version. I may just do that as its in a good position at the moment.
Now its all fully setup and tuned its ready for business. It was not quite ready when I took the Ha but because the object was really in the centre of the image the corners didn't matter.

Greg.

[troypiggo]

Lovely and delicate. I was thinking same as Marcus re blue, but am viewing on iPhone not calib monitor.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Troy. Its the O111 that is the blue and I looked at the O111 master again and its definitely there. A lot of the data was imaged using the Trius 694 which is 66% QE in O111 which I think is the most sensitive of any CCD plus it was on the RHA which is very fast at F3.8 so it collects a lot of light very quickly. Perhaps twice as fast as many other scopes. 12 inch and F3.8 is a good formula, demanding in terms of precision but the advantages are the speed of data collection. I think its ideal.

So its picked up actual O111 that probably is not normally picked up. But I did check the processing of colour after Marcus commented on that and I did tone down the blue compared to where it was when he commented. So its less blue than it was!

Greg.

[RickS]

They show up in my long Oiii integration too. I should try a repro some time...

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rick.

Greg.

[Rex]

Awesome image Greg. The star colours are superb! When you zoom right in you get a multitude of tiny little orange, yellow and red stars, great job.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rex.

Greg.