Banana Neb

[Peter.M]

A narrowband showing from another of these close-to-bright-object nebula. The banana portion is actually quite bright in all filters, which made processing quite tough. I have tried to maintain brightness differences between areas with no HDR style methods or masking.
Still not sure I am happy with it, but oh well.

Uploaded image really just for thumbnail, only worth viewing on astrobin below.

Big - https://app.astrobin.com/u/Astronopete?i=u3ik86

[kvmx (Nick)]

Great photo! It really does look like a banana

[PRejto (Peter)]

I think so many NB images look fake and the colours pushed too far. Of all the NGC3199 images I glanced at on Astrobin I think yours is the most subtle and "realistic" (whatever that means? RGB like???). Also, many of the images make no attempt to bring out the darker areas as you have. The bright is still bright and stands out but the darks are not just mush in the background.
Great job!

[Peter.M]

Originally Posted by PRejto

I think so many NB images look fake and the colours pushed too far. Of all the NGC3199 images I glanced at on Astrobin I think yours is the most subtle and "realistic" (whatever that means? RGB like???). Also, many of the images make no attempt to bring out the darker areas as you have. The bright is still bright and stands out but the darks are not just mush in the background.
Great job!

Cheers Peter, narrow band is always going to be hard when it comes to that natural look, but for whatever reason I have grown to enjoy less HDR versions of most objects.

Im probably in the minority, but even with M42 id go so far as to say id probably prefer blown out cores over HDR processing. To me HDR makes the object look weird.

Originally Posted by kvmx

Great photo! It really does look like a banana

Thanks! Im actually not a huge fan of the name, my wife told me it looks like a curled up mouse, and I see more of the classic crescent moon image.