Gum 85 - Nested Egg Nebula

[jase]

Hi All,

This rounds out the last of the fill-in images for the recent imaging runs. I can't say I've seen this target imaged often as its easily shadowed by its more glamorous neighbour. Top points for those who recognise the scene without looking at planetarium software. Its an interesting object in its own right.

Gum 85 - Nested Egg Nebula (http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/image.php?fld_image_id=238&fld_album_id=11)

Serpens, or the Serpent, is held by the Serpent Holder, Ophiuchus, and is the only constellation to consist of two separate parts - Serpens Caput (the head) and Serpens Cauda (the tail). The tail resides in a rich area of the Milky Way comprising of hydrogen and dust. One such feature is the emission nebulae fuelled by radiation from the open cluster NGC 6604. This cluster forms part of the Serpens OB2 association which comprises over 100 OB stars within a common age of five million years. The surrounding large emission nebulae known as Gum 85 (aka Sharpless 2-54) appears to harbour a bright egg shaped nebula. It is not clear from the scientific literature what is causing the remarkably intense glow of the egg. The nebula is approximately 6,200 light years away.

Single frame image, so still working on understanding the intricacies of PixInsight. Much of the finesse work was however still performed in Photoshop. I'm yet to get my head around Ha blends in PI. I've seen tutorials that explain it and its not very different to what I've done before in CCDStack and MaximDL. Still utilised PI for a few steps, in particular HDRtransformWavelet with its multi scale processing - am really enjoying what the function brings to an image, better still I'm incorporating the wavelet back in as a layer in PS so have complete control over where it needs to be applied to control aspects such as noise. Masks in PI seem overly complex yet logical in other ways. More to learn, that's for sure.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. All comments welcome.

Cheers

[Octane]

Jase,

Beautiful blood stain in space.

That looks like a difficult one to get the dynamic range right in all the right spots -- just like the Cat's Paw.

Well done!

H

[jase]

Thanks H! I was quite astounded by the depth of nebulosity picked up in the red filtered exposures. While not the same contrast as the Ha data, they alluded to the overall saturation of region. The hydrogen appears thin in areas allowing the star cloud golden hue to appear. It was an interesting field to process. I did contemplate emphasising the egg with selective processing but decided to keep its brightness relative (and real) to the surrounding nebula. Thanks again for the feedback.

[strongmanmike]

Well I can see M16 poking down from the top :question:

Overall very nice but if I were to be a traditional picky perfectionist Jase ;).. I see the shadow highlights in use again, what looks like a slight colour gradient, perhaps the neb is a little too red (?) and the left side dark areas look a tad green :poke:.

Otherwiiiiise... another lovely TV dinner vista :D :thumbsup:

Mike

[Alchemy]

Once again you have gone nice and deep. No doubt a panel for a future mosaic potentially as it is such an interesting area of sky.Would be interested to see how the dark tower near scorpios tail comes up with this method.

Just pondering, and digging into my memory, ( somewhat cluttered) you bought yourself one of those big red mounts and sold the Titan ..... But you're still using the 106, bit of an overkill.... Were you expecting a difference at that FL or........ Is there a bigger scope in the future to used here. Not being picky just wondering.

Cheers mate

Ps no points for me I didn't recognize the target.

[leon]

Once again Jase you have shown the beauty of Deep Space with a simply awesome capture.
Your imaging is world class in MHO, Wonderful stuff, show us more !!

Leon

[sjastro]

Fantastic work Jase.

Regards

Steven

[Stevec35]

Nice work Jase. Never seen this one before.

Cheers

Steve

[suma126]

great image well done and love your setup :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Fabulous image Jase.

It looks somewhat 3D with the red areas seeming to stand forward. Nice effect.

Its hard to image an area that is not already done heavily. So that's a big plus for finding something like that especially when its a widefield vista.

I tried HDR Wavelet on one recent image and I am not 100% sure but I think it caused some problems so I backtracked and took it out. As I recall some colour noise showed up. I'l have to try it again though as it was hardly a thorough attempt.

Greg.

[jase]

Thanks Mike! You get the points, it's M16...which is part of the reason why I'm surprised this area doesn't get imaged often. Your perception of the shadow highlights tool has failed you. None was used here. As mentioned in the original post, the HDRWaveletTransform function brought out the key nebula structure. The PI DBE tool was used to clean up any gradients but from recollection, there wasn't anything major. Too red? Perhaps, but I prefer to present colour confidence in an image as opposed to seeing it washed away or muted and ultimately lacking vibrancy. Eye catching candy is what I strive for. Thanks for the feedback.



Cheers Clive! Yes, it would make a nice mosaic. Actually come to think of it, I do have a mosaic of the area I did back in 2009 - http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/image.php?fld_image_id=186&fld_album_id=9 Its on the far left.
As for the dark tower of scorpius, that will have to wait as I've already done this scene recently - http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/image.php?fld_image_id=230&fld_album_id=9

Indeed, the Titan has gone. Fantastic mount. No, was not expecting a difference. Just about any mount will provide round stars at 530mm FL, not hard. The concept that you've got a big mount, you need a big scope is flawed especially given the reason I made the purchase was not because of its load carrying capacity but the intelligence of MKS4000 TCS. Its a true robotic mount in every sense of the word.



Thanks Leon. Appreciate your kind words and encouragement mate. I'm pleased you liked it.



Thanks for checking it out Steven!



Cheers Steve. Its interesting to realise how close this is to M16. As previously mentioned, it appears to be shadowed by it more famous neighbour.



Cheers Shane. Thanks for comment.



Cheers Greg! Agree, with what you are saying on wide field vistas and shooting the same scenes over and over. Though adding a panel here or there can change the scene's perspective. You should certain keep at it with PI's HDRWaveletTransform. Its quite powerful in extracting large and small structures. To understand its logic, I think it took me one afternoon just trying different strengths and deringing configurations. I've not used it to bring out super large structures as yet. That may work well for dusty area. Thanks again for the feedback.

[strongmanmike]

What do I get, what do I get???



Doh :doh:



Ah yeh :whistle: that's what I meant...I could see the PI HDR WTF tool :question: :lol:



Ahhh you mean "fake looking" ah huh, I see....



You're welcome - just being an smart R's :P

It's a fine image :thumbsup:

Mike

[jase]

Stop making me laugh Mike. :whistle:

[strongmanmike]

Laughing at your images is good for you :thumbsup:...we can be overly serious about'em at times.

:)

[jase]

Yes, lets laugh at images. All of them. :screwy::)

[strongmanmike]

Here's one you can laugh at :D

[atalas]

Wonderful shot Jase !

[jase]

...and there is more in your online web gallery. :P



Cheers Louie. Pleased you liked it.

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Jase. There is such a broad cross section of colours and tones here. Very presentable.

Like you I have a straw on top of my huge red robot. Robotic is what I bought it for too, that an the encoders.:)

[Alchemy]

Reading between the lines, have you fully automated your setup so you can remotely image ?

[RobF]

Wonderful Jason - I've been interested in this area ever since seeing it on widefield work in Ha by Marc and others. Wonderfull to see such a detailed rendition.

I'm off now to read up on PI more - I'm sure I'm missing out on important functionality until I master the HDR WTF function :P
(actually that's what I say sometimes after trying HDR on insufficient data :D)

[Ross G]

Amazing colour and detail Jase.


Ross.

[jase]

Cheers Paul! Indeed, its an interesting area. I really enjoy processing such images where the Ha data progressively strengths through the golden star cloud hue. Nothing wrong with a straw on top of a huge red robot.



Yes, Clive. I did run it as an automated setup for a while, but its beyond this now. I would refer it as being an autonomous setup. Autonomous being that the setup thinks for itself and has its own conditional logic on what to do and when. It has taken considerable time, tuning and software expense to make it happen, but it has been what I've wanted to achieve for sometime in order to increase the efficiency of data acquisition.



Thanks Rob! I think wide field versions really suit the target. Would have been good to also get M16 in as well, but I wasn't all that interested in another mosaic. Reasonably stretched data works best with the HDR WaveletTransform tool. I remember starting off with PI and trying to working on non stretched data and as you say...yelled out HDR WTF. I thought the tool was lousy, but its really growing on me. The ability to single out different scales is powerful.



Thanks Ross. Am pleased you enjoyed it.

[multiweb]

Very nicely done. Such a dense starfield. The shades of red from deep red to pink and the dust lanes are not unlike the outer part of NGC3372. Same kind of structures. Top work again. :thumbsup: