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View Full Version here: : Pencil Nebula Narrowband (H HxO O)


furgle
03-02-2017, 12:22 PM
This image is a narrowband presentation of hydrogen, and oxygen emission lines, mapped to red and blue respectively, with the green channel synthesized as Ha x OIII. Stars colours were captured with shorter exposures using RGB filters.

I like this combination as it shows a nice rainbow of colours where both OIII and Ha are present in various quantities.

**Image:**

* 31x 900s 6nm H-alpha + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
* 30x 900s 6nm OIII + 15 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
* 18x 40s + 15x 20s Red + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
* 18x 40s + 16x 20s Green + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
* 19x 40s + 19x 20s Blue + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias


Total exposure 16 hours 8 minutes.

**Hardware:**

* Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120
* SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
* QSI 683-ws Camera @ -15°C
* Astronomik 6nm Ha, 12nm SII, 12nm OIII, typ 2c RGB filters
* Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
* Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
* Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II



**Location:**

* Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
* Imaged over 6 nights, high temperatures & humidity, new moon.



**Software:**

* Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
* Captured with AstroArt 6
* Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
* FocusLock live focusing
* CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
* CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, combine RGB.
* Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, high pass filter, gradient removal, levels, curves, color map, saturation.

furgle
03-02-2017, 12:23 PM
Higher quality image here: http://adam.lundie.com.au/astrophotography/NGC_2736_-_The_Pencil_Nebula/NGC_2736_-_The_Pencil_Nebula_20170202.html

Placidus
03-02-2017, 03:51 PM
That's magnificent, Alan. You've found a great deal of very faint OIII. Well done!