Lying within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satalite galaxy to ours 158,000 light years away, this nebula complex, with its plethora of NGC objects, presents an Ha and OIII rich tapestry of colourful nebulae and star clusters.
Data was gathered over multiple nights in a moonless sky for a total of 17 hours of total exposure time. This was after I had to throw away 4 hours due to a mistake in framing
. Totals were: 3 hrs of Luminance, 5 Hours of Ha, 3 hours of OIII (not quite enough but I made it work) and 2 hours each for R,G & B.
This is a natural colour palette image (I.e. an LRGB image augmented with Ha and OIII). I expected the natural palette version to be quite difficult to achieve and it was!! You have to make sure that the colours and tints aren't too far off the raw RGB combine (the most accurate colour rendition). You also have to make sure that the data for Ha and OIII are all properly represented. This is a structurally complex field with lots of colour and luminance tones so it was a challenge.
Interesting trivia: So far I've spotted 5 distant galaxies shining through - a bit of a surprise. Also, the closest observable separation between fainter stars is about 1.8 arc seconds - not bad given less than perfect seeing.
Anyhoo ... attached here is a crop of just NGC 2014 and 2020
On PBase you'll find:
The full frame SCREEN SIZED version:
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171342404/original
An annotated SCREEN SIZED version:
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171342682/original
The full frame, full resolution version:
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171359121/original
And to prove I'm not a wide field woose
A frame context image
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171359151/original
Image credit Carlos Fairbairn via APOD. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150827.html
Underneath the images you'll find a one line description of each NGC object.
I'm pretty pleased with the result so I hope you like it!!!
PS: Please be aware that Google Chrome does NOT display the correct colour profile (sRGB). Use Firefox or Microsoft Edge if you want to see it as I processed it.