NGC6231 and the Dark Tower

[mountainjoo]

Managed to get up to Wiruna to collect the LRGB data for this image, Ha taken from my trusty light polluted back yard. Greg's recent super wide field images provide great context for where this open cluster and nebulosity is situated, near the prawn.

Big size here (http://www.astrobin.com/full/304894/D/)

Original size here (http://www.astrobin.com/full/304894/D/?real=&mod=)

The hydrogen around the dark tower in the lower right is being ionised by the stars within NGC6231, which contains three WR stars.

Must have been a little careless setting up as I've ended up with some slight field rotation, try not to look too closely!

[gregbradley]

Wow that's a lovely image. Fabulous colour. The stars look nice and round and I think a certain amount of egginess sometimes disappears in the combines if a number of the frames have round stars.

I have a data set that is similar I haven't processed yet. This has given me an incentive to process it.

The larger field of view suits the Dark Tower as you can see the river of Ha better and the generally large amount of Ha in this region.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Nice colour and composition, had me enjoying it for a while, a top image Jerome :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Also I must say that is a great Ha blend. What method did you use? Lighten blend?

Greg.

[RickS]

Excellent composition and a cracker of an image, Jerome!

[mountainjoo]

Thanks Greg. The aberrations are certainly less noticeable in the combined image when compared to the individual channels. Perhaps the colour creates a distraction. Plenty of Ha around this area, looking forward to seeing your rendition.

To blend the Ha I've used the PixelMath tool in PixInsight. I added a starless, background subtracted copy of the Ha channel to the luminance and red channels, and a fraction to the blue channel.



Thanks Mike, glad you enjoyed the view.



Thanks Rick. The original composition from the first night on this was actually a bit awkward, fortunately changed it before I made the trip to collect the luminance and colour data.

[Placidus]

The bright blue-white of the cluster contrasts wonderfully with the general Milky Way stars. The Ha around the Dark Tower is excellent.