Hi All,
First image for 2009 and something that I’ve been working on for a while. Not that we are talking mega data, but had some issue with what was acquired. So it took time to bring it together and produce what I’d deem as an “acceptable” result. The target has been on my imaging list for sometime after targeting the
Seagull nebula region a while back with the FSQ, so here’s is my rendition of
Cederblad 90 (Gum 3).
About the target:
Located along the wing tip of the Seagull Nebula (IC2177) is Cederblad 90 (aka Gum 3, Ced90). The nebula consists of both emission and reflection properties. The vibrant hydrogen alpha atoms mix with dust particles reflected by the bright star SAO 152349 produce a pink hue with delicate traces of blue nebulosity.
About the image:
This image is an [Ha+L]+[Ha+R]GB composite consisting of 8.7 hours (Ha:120m;L:165m;RGB:80m respectively). The data was acquired from multiple instruments as I simply couldn’t get it right with one – stupid I know, but I got impatient to wait it out. All data acquired on LightBuckets imaging rigs. Base luminance and Ha was acquired using 20” RC in Mayhill, US. I attempted to collect RGB data from this instrument but found the RGB data to be sub optimal. So, I collected the RGB data from the 14.5” RC in Pingelly, AU. Finally, I wasn’t happy with the nebulosity structure to the right of Ced90 so acquired specific data for the area using the 24” RC in Rodeo, US. Even then the structure is rather ill defined – seems to be difficult to obtain. The RGB data from Pingelly didn’t guide too well, but being chrominance information, I wasn’t really bothered by this…was also binned which minimized the impact. Threw out quite a few subs on this one due to seeing. This was rather frustrating to say the least. Processed with CCDStack and PS CS4. Quick note on what was done…Luminance and Ha was blended using lighten mode. Have to say I’m enjoying what CS4 provides such as adjustment layers on masks and other cool stuff – feels like being a kid again with so much to learn with this tool. Ha data was also blended into Red channel. All incorporated into PS where most of the work was done. Colour balance tweaks and HPF etc. The weighting of the Ha+R was perhaps a little too high so I created a straight RGB and layered this over the top as a colour blend. This allowed the faint blue wisps of reflection nebulosity to come back through. To “pep up” the colours I used a heavily DDP stretched and saturated RGB layer which was incorporated as a softlight blend. Needed to tone it down a little so just adjusted the opacity. No much else to add other than I could have been a little harder on the noise reduction, but I don’t like the native tools in PS for this…need to buy the 64bit NeatImage PS plug-in soon - the fun never stops!
Anyway, I hope you like it.
Cheers
