Cat's Paw Lobster nebula Widefield

[Nikolas]

I had no idea how close together these heavenly bodies are together till I had a look at skysafari Took a bit of fiddling with the asiair pro to centre on both and then to turn the camera to fill them both together.

24 x 600 seconds 294mc Pro
stacked and processed in HOO using Astropixel Processor 1.83beta version which allows for star removal or star reduction.
Skywatcher ed72 and Optolong L-Extreme.
Comments and critiques more than welcome.

[rustigsmed]

nice and sharp nik!

i was eyeing off the lobster and m16 last night but they would be sitting a bit too on the perimeter. might work on your rig.

cheers

russ

[Nikolas]

Thanks Russ I just managed to fit them in Wonder if I used the ed50 guidescope how it would go but it needs a flattener

[Andy01]

It's a good result, nice colours & details - but compositionally, it suffers from the unwritten "Just because you can fit two objects in the frame doesn't mean that you should" rule. :lol:

Specifically, the viewers eye darts from one to the other then comes to rest in the void in the centre, where nothing is happening.:shrug:

Although it's astrophotography, it's still an image in the medium of photography so the basics of composition, ie: rule of thirds etc. come into play.

It would be amazing to see that lovely wide field targeting a single object in context with it's surrounds in space. :D

[Nikolas]

Thanks Andy and you are 100% correct, I never imaged the lobster and I have the cat's paw. Was trying to show how close toether these objects are. Cheers

[gregbradley]

Lovely colours and very sharp and detailed.

Yes I was surprised when I saw how close they were together a while ago when I did a widefield Milky Way shot.

Greg.

[Retrograde]

I like it Nik - excellent detail and well done on fitting them both in.
Yes you probably need some more sky around each of the nebulae to give the image better overall composition - mosaic perhaps?

[Nikolas]

Thanks :)
I've never tried a mosaic as yet, this is on my to do list
cheers

[barx1963]

Agree with what everyone else has said about the composition. Mosaics are not hard, I have done a number in Pixinsight and once you get your head around the process, it works very easily.

That said the individual component look great with lots of nice intetesting detail.

Also, although I am not a fan of popular names for objects, much preferring proper catalogue definitions, I note that your thread title refers to the Prawn Nebula which is IC 4628 and you have imaged NGC6357, sometimes known as the Lobster nebula. Both excellent crustaceans but different objects :P

Malcolm

[Sunfish]

To offer a contrary view, I quite like the composition.

Looks like the paw and the claw are having a bit of a stand off . Certainly suits the story telling narrative of ancient star naming

The lobster has that territorial look on the edge of the frame while the cat is rearing up .

Great colour and lots of detail.

[Nikolas]

It's also called the war and peace nebula, all rather confusing :)