IC 1274 Ninja Turtle in full kit

[Placidus]

To our 3 hours of H-alpha we've added 4 hours of OIII and 3 of SII.

The full image is here. (www.photos.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-H3BX5Dh/0/O/Ninja%20Turtle%20Ha%203%20OIII%204% 20SII%203%20hrs.jpg)

We proceed yet further into the murky depths of going (almost) completely starless (removing over 10,000 stars), then wavelet sharpening, then replacing the stars from the H-alpha channel only, as (slightly bluish) white.

What do we find? A Ninja Turtle of indeterminate age, in full battle gear. IC 1274 is the head, the bright region of nebulosity at the top of the image. What we previously identified as a yabbie has partially mutated into a gladius, or short sword. The black dragon is emblazoned on the fighter's belt. The left hand (our right) holds a large shield which on very close inspection (around the 4-o'clock region) can be seen to be decorated with a rampant starfish-man, completing the nautical battle theme.

Getting as much detail and contrast out of the image as we did was quite a challenge. It is pretty boring in OIII. Two areas of OIII stand out: the capacious turtle beer-belly (complete with the black dragon that we mentioned earlier) seems to be IC 4685. Toward 8 o'clock from the gladius is another blue patch illuminated by NGC 6559.

The dusty region our left of the turtle's right ear is Barnard 91. We've allowed it to show as pretty black, consistent with the times.

Sulphur II was even less informative than usual, being largely co-located with H-alpha. There is considerable SII in the gladius, consistent with its devilish purpose.

Very best,
Mike and Trish

[Regulus]

The colours work well on this subject. Nicely done.
I thought it was Great A'tuin, but noticed that there were no elephants holding up a Disk World standing on his back. So... yeah Ninja Turtle :-)

Trev.

[multiweb]

Wow! :eyepop: This is getting better by the minute. So smooth and the stars are so tiny. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Mike & Trish,
It looks great to me &
I think it could even be better if a bit more stretching was done with HDR
toning on the bright parts that are of similar brightness &
it looks like it could take a little sharpening - that's if you could control the bright stars.

cheers
Allan

[gregbradley]

That's a great image scale and you've achieved great solidity in that image. I like it.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

This is one object I just wouldn't have though would lend itself to NB imaging...but well, well, there you go, glad you dared :)...it is quite an intriguing image guys, that inky river looks so cool, nice work :thumbsup:

Mike

[Atmos]

I love it MnT! I can see what Allan means by sharpening, the whole image looks reasonably soft but that's just the region, kinda like one that Rick did a while back. A lot of nebulosity but lacked the hard edges that can be sharpened.

I think it is the lack of edges that gives it a real 3D feel in that the vast majority of the nebulosity appears very faint, that I can almost see the black veil of space behind it.

[Stevec35]

Very nice indeed! I've never seen this in NB before and it looks great.

Cheers

Steve

[Placidus]

Thanks, Trevor. We thought a turtle could legitimately have a touch of green.



Hi, Allan. Had to think hard about your insightful comment. As others have remarked, this area is intrinsically really soft. Apart from one edge of the turtle's face, the yabbie/gladius, and the black dragon, there are no shock fronts or hard edges anywhere. The overall gain we used on the wavelet sharpening was 280%, far more than we've ever used before on anything. We take it as a complement that the result doesn't look oversharpened. :)



Cheers, Marc. :) The star size is cheating the tiniest bit, in that they are the H-alpha stars. We've been struggling for a couple years trying to master the narrowband magenta halo issue, and we think we're close now.



Thanks, Greg. It was a surprising fight. Glad you like it too.



Many thanks, Mike. :) You are absolutely right about it not being an obvious target. It fought back.



Hi, Colin. Yes, apart from a few tiny specific features, the whole gas cloud is really lacking in shock fronts or hard edges. We've wavelet sharpened this much more than any other image we've ever done.



Thanks, Steve. Glad you like it.

Best,
M&T

[SimmoW]

That's gorgeous M&T! Love the blue

[Retrograde]

That is superb Mike & Trish. So deep and detailed!

[Placidus]

Thanks, Simon. The OIII took a bit of teasing out.



Cheers, Pete, that's kind.

[Slawomir]

Awesome image Mike n Trish :thumbsup:

I like the colours and also how you nicely presented the structures, but...where is the rest of the nebula? :scared3: :lol:

[Placidus]

Thanks Suavi! (Giggle, chortle).

[RickS]

A very different rendition of the tootsies, M&T. The whole thing looks quite wrong in the best possible way :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Thanks, Rick.

There's a stunning LRGB shot by Adam Block (http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/ic1274.shtml) which shows very strong blue striations across IC 1274, which are only hinted at here. Perhaps they are reflection nebulosity and would therefore not show up much through an OIII filter.