Sneaky Serpent or Scary Face? Sh2-54

[Addos]

Il serpente o la faccia?

A large HII region in the constellation Serpens, part of the same complex of nebulosity that includes the Eagle and Omega nebulas houses an interesting little fellow that depending on its orientation, has been observed to resemble a snake peeking out of a 'hole' in the ground; or a flame haired scary face Either way, I dig it!

Rev 1 is the full field view and rev 2 is the rotated and cropped 'face'.

SHO, PIP functions, same routine with the Esprit 120 / 294mm / opto 7nm / eq6r combo

Captured over five nights between 23 and 27 July.

Higher res: https://www.astrobin.com/spnebs/

[AstroViking]

I need to get something to eat. I read that as 'focaccia'. Definitely not the same thing.

Awesome image, love the colours and the insane amount of detail in there.

Cheers,
V

[Dave882]

Lovely view of a really interesting field. Wonderful colour and detail as usual. Well done!!

[PKay]

Hi Adam

A stunning result, the hires is quite beautiful.

I quite like the SHO representation that you have acheived.

Very well done :thumbsup:

[Addos]

thanks guys! some decent integration time at last!

[AdamJL]

Nice colours in this one, Adam! I actually really like the bottom right hand corner to the left and right of the O3 region. Looks like a stunning region.

Great processing. I'll add in a "but" now, because I think you're good enough to take the comment - your star colour is very muted. Even with narrowband, I'd have thought some of those stars could have kept a bit more colour.

[Benjamin]

Have been at the same thing and this is awesome. Love the details and colours. I have a slightly different take on the pareidolia though :-)

[Addos]

Thanks Steve, was surprised at the amount of dark nebulosity in this field - certainly dont get that from the NINA sky atlas images :) Gives it some nice 'depth', I think. Also, how good is focaccia with some nice cured meats and pickles? srsly.



Gracias Dave!



Thank you Pete. I played with the scaling images in the colour blending process and I think it helped get some nicely defined yellow regions, and a more repeatable/efficient process.



Cheers Adam. Agree on the O3 region! I knew from the sky atlas images that ridge was there, but the hand-looking 'burst' of Ha to the left of it is a nice little surprise! Fair call on the stars; and thank you for the very politely put critique :) I do deliberately keep the saturation of the stars lighter compared to the nebulous region so as not to overshadow the main POI; but agree I've undercooked them this time around. A revision shall be incoming!



Thanks Ben! Saw yours on the 'bin; great take! Super deep reds and great stars. Also, pareidolia - great word :)

[Addos]

Updated: Moar star saturation

[AdamJL]

yeah that's better :)

Nice work! Care to share your workflow for that colour combo? I'm working on the Cat's Paw myself and have started over about 80,000 times now trying to get the colours right.

[Addos]

I'm a little protective of my specific recipe for the colour blend, but the methodology I use was popularised by this fellow, who gives a run through of the premise and base equation to use in pixelmath.

https://thecoldestnights.com/2020/06/pixinsight-dynamic-narrowband-combinations-with-pixelmath/

Few pointers from my own trial and error with this -
* He does cover it, but this really only 'scales' properly with non-linear images.
* The big differences in palette come from the scaling image - i.e. the first image in the PIP function ("X"^~Y and/or "X"+~Y). Don't be afraid to use modified versions of your original SHO channel data as the scaling image, if you want to get a little more creative
* You will still need to play with some curves; but for the most part this process does away with the need for colour masks
* Results will vary depending on the signal strength of each channel on each target

[strongmanmike]

Nice one Adam, like the colours

Definitely see Wilson there....

Mike

[Addos]

Thats awesome, good spot Mike! I was visualising one of those troll dolls from the early 90's with the spiky hair, but its definitely more Wilson! Nice

[Craig_]

Beautiful image of a very interesting region.

[marc4darkskies]

Well done Adam! As others have said, very good SHO rendition with some nice detail. :thumbsup:

[Craig_]

A stunning image!

[WJH]

Awesome colour selection for the region. Well done

[Spottysam]

Cool shot!

[Andy01]

That's really well done! Great framing & colour palette. :)

[Nikolas]

That's a great image don't know how I missed it, I can't say I'm, familiar with this nebula I like it.