IC2944 - the Running Chicken

[CoolhandJo]

The Running Chicken Nebula. I was pleased to have imaged this. A few clouds stopped nights but I managed to get 18 hours. I was happy with the final outcome.

High Res Astrobin here https://app.astrobin.com/i/rph9p0

IC2944 Running Chicken Lambada Centauri Nebula
by Coolhandjo

Published: Apr 12, 2025

Total integration: 18h 45m

Integration per filter:
- Hα: 6h 40m
- SII: 5h 45m
- OIII: 6h 20m

Equipment:
- Telescope: Askar 103APO
- Camera: ZWO ASI533MM Pro
- Mount: ZWO AM3
- Filters: Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 1.25", Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 1.25", Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 1.25"
- Accessory: Askar 0.8x Reducer for APO103
- Software: Adobe Photoshop, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight

[gregbradley]

Wow, that is sensational.

Greg.

[Leo.G]

That is stunning Paul!
It's funny when you see amazing images like this and know immediately why they are named as they are.

[TrevorW]

Yep colourful and sharp SHO nicely done :)

[Dave882]

Beautiful detail and pallet. Great work!

[dugnsuz]

Very nice Paul

[CoolhandJo]

Thanks!




Thanks. I used a different colour pallet adjustment for this as I needed the outer regions to have more colour



Thanks Trevor



Thanks Leo.



Thanks Greg. I had a couple of goes at this. I added 4 more hours and did an autolinear fit. That helped a lot in giving the image depth.

[JohnA]

Wow, that is amazing, these are the sort of images i aspire to in the future

[CoolhandJo]

Thanks John.

[Nikolas]

love it Paul, I will dance the Lambada in your honour

[CoolhandJo]

Oops. Spell check lol

[strongmanmike]

Lovely central Chicken, your processing certainly didn't fall fowl in any way, so the final result is right up the pecking order and that's not a poultry thing to say.

Mike

[CoolhandJo]

Bahahahah thats good Mike!

[Startrek]

Paul
Another excellent image with staggering resolution and fine detail
Really nice contrast and colour too , not over saturated and well balanced
Please don’t tell me it’s AI enhanced ?
If it is, no probs each one to their own , everyone’s using it except for little ol
me. I’m happy to stay in struggle street with a documentary image ( warts and all )
If it isn’t , your a processing maestro , must have been really good data !!

Well done !!

Martin

[CoolhandJo]

Hi Martin

I used blurXterminator correct only and I blinked between the two and there was almost no enhancement. I used noiseXterminator and it did reduce noise.

Apart from that nothing more.

The data is good from the outset to be honest. The guiding with the am3 is about 0.24 rms average . And the optics of askar triplet delivers detail, especially if you go to 600 sec subs and beyond. I'm in bortle 4 to 5 which helps.

The rest is trial.and error processing techniques. In this case I used autolinear fit script. That helped immensely in balancing the green channel Ha to the others. That brought out all the fine detail

[Nikolas]

Just think if you included the banana nebula and the chicken nebula you end up with this: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig7EKb6BrQk)




Don't ask how I found this :)