A Dark Nebula, Globular Cluster and a Planetary Nebula walk into a, uh, star field?

[lazjen]

Lynds' Dark Nebula 235 aka Barnard 84 (I also call it T-Rex nebula or Preying Mantis nebula)
NGC6440 - Globular Cluster
NGC6445 - Planetary Nebula aka Little Gem Nebula or Box Nebula

It's about 7 hrs of data over 2 nights earlier this month (July 2020).

Astrobin with larger version, details, etc: https://astrob.in/zt1z9s/B/

EDIT: Updated with less green version!

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Please feel free to give feedback, especially on colour.

[Andy01]

That’s cool, looks like a black scorpion!
Reckon the stars are a bit cyan coloured, might be worth another look there?
Nice collection of stellar goodies 😊

[lazjen]

Yeah, I forgot to do a SCNR on it... :ashamed:

New revision up on Astrobin without the greenish tinge.

EDIT: Also updated original message with new revision

[Paul Haese]

Nice hoovering there Chris. I remember years ago I undertook a dark dust clouds task after viewing the fine images of Tom Davis who posted here then. His images were a marvel to behold and inspiration to drive off the beaten track of objects for wide field work.

Maybe take a look at your blue to bring out the golden stars more but other than that the image is very nice.

[Ryderscope]

Good once Chris. I am a fan of wide field dark nebula images :thumbsup:

[lazjen]

Thanks Paul and Rodney.

With my revised version, I think it's got a lot more golden stars now? I'm not sure it should go any further.

[strongmanmike]

This is great Chris :thumbsup: Awesome star field and a very intriguing dark nebula, well done. I contemplated hitting it myself last year so your image should keep me satisfied for another year..thanks :D.

It's a pareidoliafile's wet dream too :scared2:...I'm surprised Andy only saw a scorpion :shrug: :lol:...wait for Mike Berthon-Jones to have a masters crack and we should start seeing a few more things in there :thumbsup:

Mike

[lazjen]

Thanks Mike, I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now. Finally at a point where I felt I could do it (mostly) right.

If you flip the image 90 clockwise, you can make out a bug, using NGC6440 as one of the eyes you can see. And the dark nebula being the creepy crawly legs. :)

[tornado33]

Love images like that, that show several interesting objects in the one pic. Nicely done

[lazjen]

Thanks!

I did another version after some more feedback. I got ColorCalibration to give me a better result:

262643

Astrobin: https://astrob.in/full/zt1z9s/C/

[multiweb]

Beautiful field and colors. Really well done. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[lazjen]

Thanks Marc.

I've appreciated the feedback I've gotten from various places that helped me improve the processing of this image. Maybe one day I'll actually remember it all and not make so many mistakes? :)

[Placidus]

And the bartender says, "Why the long exposure?"


A very fine, highly narratogenic image. The globular cluster seems to be the odd one out, since most of the rest of the story, with the dust and the PN is about things happening very close to us in both space and time.


Andy's Scorpion King is very obvious, but it could also be a medusa (either of the jellyfish variety or of the Perseus and Andromeda gorgon type), or it could be an ink droplet carefully placed by an extremely large deity, diffusing into tendrils amongst the stars. There is also a pair of glowing eyes toward bottom left of the scorpion/medusa/inkdrop, perhaps a little gremlin minding its own business.


Very well done!


Colour-wise, we'd love to see a version with the general starry background more golden, while still showing the true emission colours of the PN. No idea how one would go about that, but others are starting to figure out how to do it.

[lazjen]

Thanks! Interesting that you should say this, I had a version that was more golden colour than any I've posted so far (I didn't check the PN colours at the time though). I'll have to revisit it sometime and see what it looks like. I remember thinking at the time that it looked pretty, although I was concerned it wasn't close to being "right". :)