IC 4628 Prawn Nebula (uncooked crustacean)

[RobF]

SE Qld has been blessed with quite a few clear nights in a row. I think I've bagged enough data over multiple nights to have a go at a NB image for this little sucker, but for the time being have got caught up in monochrome Ha data processing (before I try any chilli sauce versions :rolleyes:)

This is 2hrs of unbinned 15min Ha (Baader 7nm) subs through the 8" Newt with QHY9 taken last night. My first go at this one. I'd like to say FOV was carefully composed, but in fact was ad hoc courtesy of plate solving and co-ords from The Sky (with 30 degrees Position Angle carried over from FOV alignment on the Running Chicken neb earlier in the night) - but pleased with what I got in the frame.

I can't see/image this one until gets very high, so moon has precluded any colour work.

[ozstronomer]

Very nice Rob, lots of detail there.
I'll be interested to see how you go with the other NB data :thumbsup:

[RobF]

Thanks Geoff. I thought I had the data crunched down to master NB subs tonight, but have realised the noisey SII frames (even with binningx2) have hot pixels showing. I'll have to fiddle with the default image integration settings a bit before I can work on a psychodelic NB version. Hopefully not too far away.

I only know enough to be (very!) dangerous in the NB sphere :)

[allan gould]

Exceptionally nice detail in your close up of the prawn and I can't wait to see the final image.
Allan

[jjjnettie]

:) You don't realise how dusty that region is until you see it in NB.
Nice work Rob.

[bmitchell82]

Rob your Prawn is 180 deg flipped..... damn refractors













(nice prawn I must admit :D )

[Octane]

Very promising, Rob!

Seeing all this hydrogen alpha work is inspiring me to invest in some narrowband filters and forego LRGB for the time being.

H

[dvj]

That's a great image. Well processed and sharp stars to the corners.

j

[peter_4059]

That's looking good Rob. It's got a nice feel of depth to it.

[RickS]

You've got some good ingredients, so go make that prawn cocktail, Rob :)

[multiweb]

Truly superb! :clap:

[SkyViking]

That looks very promising Rob, looking forward to the full colour version :)

[RobF]

Thank you sir :)



Thanks Jeanette. I lost a few subs to poor tracking and wind, but seem to have got a bit of contrast in the end. Loving how your colour version is coming together. I wonder if it would work to map some of your RGB on to this Ha?



Hmm, realised that after posting. I think it's Ubuntu 64bit PI install to blame. There is a setting in PI to flip the field - for some reason the default doesn't work with QHY FITS. I always forget to set it right when PI reinstalled - must have it wrong. This is a newt image BTW.



Thanks Humayun. Ha is certainly a great option for those many nights when the moon is about or you can't get out to a decent dark sky site.



Many thanks John. Fairly tight FOV, but surprising what the budget Newt can do with a decent set of exposures.




Cheers Peter. I tried a couple of contrast enhancing processes in PI then toned them right back to try and keep it reasonably natural.



Mmmmm. Seafood :D



Thanks Marc :thanx:



Thanks Rolf. I made sure I got more OIII and SII (binned) but my NB skills are poor and noise looking a lot more difficult to handle in the other filters. Will see how it goes. All educational...:)

[strongmanmike]

Looks really good Rob, lot's of solidity there.

Good composition for a point and shoot effort too :thumbsup:

One thing, did you use shadow highlights on this in PS? :question:

Mike

[RobF]

Thanks Mike, sometimes you get lucky.

There are a hodge-podge of Pixinsight functions I played with (ala "oh Mr Hart"). Local area histogram enhance, atrous wavelets and some manual recombination of wavelet layers using pixel math (oh, and some masked erosion on the stars). I think in photoshop speak that's effectively like combining high pass filtered (at a large and small scale) cloned images to varying amounts and very slight minimum filter on stars (PI still doesn't do layers unfortunately, so you have to mathematically combine such things). It was late and I wasn't being very scientific about it, using original histogram stetched image to try and tone it down at the end. I usually do a final polish in PS, but for practice forced myself to use only PI for processing, with PS used at end just to downsize the final jpg to <200kb for display here.

I often feel like the "Sorcerer's apprentice" playing with some PI functions :lol:
(suspect Juan, Rogelio, Harry or other PI gurus might come in and see what is happening, then clip me over the ear and say "No! Not like that!")

[bmitchell82]

ahhh so it is a newtonian photo... (proud of you rob) :P im used to nice chunky 1.8mm diffraction spikes :D not delicate 0.7mm spider vane diffraction spikes so you fooled me on this one :D

[marco]

Lovely Ha of the prawn Rob with a very good framing and processing. I like it!

Clear skeis
Marco

[strongmanmike]

1.8mm?? :rofl::rofl::rofl: bah, pencil neck ;)

he he

[RobF]

I'm havin' fun with the Zenithstar, but no danger of going over to the dark side and abandoning my trust Newt any time soon! :love: :fight:
Actually the Prawn probably could have used the wider FOV, but I needed the Newt to collect data for a NB effort on the Running Chicken earlier in the night(s) (already had plenty of Ha on it and wanted to get some SII and OIII).



Thanks for checking it out and the encouragement Marco.

[Ross G]

Hi Rob,

Great detail and nice tones.


Ross.