IC1396 - the Elephant's Trunk

[RickS (Rick)]

The Elephant's Trunk is a star forming area with interstellar gas and dust being twisted and formed by hot young stars and protostars. This is a Hubble Palette (roughly) image created from data captured at DSQ in New Mexico.

Scope: FSQ-106ED
Mount: Paramount MyT
Camera: QSI683
Filters: Astrodon Gen II LRGB, 5nm Ha
Guiding: QSI OAG + Lodestar
Image scale: 2.094 arcsec/pixel (drizzled to 1.5x approx)
Exposures: 16x1800s Ha, 16x1800s Oiii, 18x1800s Sii (25 hours)
Processing: PixInsight 1.8

High res versions available on Astrobin: http://www.astrobin.com/full/231580/0/

Cheers,
Rick.

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Sensational !

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Richard! I think I'm getting the hang of this narrowband colour thing though some may disagree

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Another great image Rick - processing is subtle and reveals details without damaging real data, colours are pleasantly balanced. Top stuff

Just need to ask- did you add spikes to stars for an extra effect?

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

That's a keeper Rick. Lovely image!

Cheers

Steve

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Hi, Rick,

Magnificent. Superb detail.

Possible typo: APOD by Cannone et al labels it IC 1396 or IC 1396A, whereas yours is labelled IC 3496.

Best,
Mike

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Slawomir

Another great image Rick - processing is subtle and reveals details without damaging real data, colours are pleasantly balanced. Top stuff

Just need to ask- did you add spikes to stars for an extra effect?

Thanks, Suavi. You've rumbled me on the spikes again

Originally Posted by Stevec35

That's a keeper Rick. Lovely image!

Cheers

Steve

Thank you, Steve.

Originally Posted by Placidus

Hi, Rick,

Magnificent. Superb detail.

Possible typo: APOD by Cannone et al labels it IC 1396 or IC 1396A, whereas yours is labelled IC 3496.

Best,
Mike

Thanks very much, Mlke, and you are correct. I had the right name in my processing notes but managed to type something completely different!

[gregbradley]

A beautiful image Rick. Superb processing.

Greg.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Wonderfully executed Rick

[vlazg (George)]

Stunning image.

[topheart]

Top notch indeed!

Very well done!

Cheers,
Tim

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks Greg, Colin, George & Tim!

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Great colours, very 3D - well done on a great image Rick

[ozstronomer (Geoff)]

Great image Rick, love the colour palette

Geoff

[RobF (Rob)]

Whew. That's a tour-de-force Rick.
Amazing image

[Paul Haese]

That's a nice image Rick. Interesting colours and great detail. Maybe a bit too contrasty for me but still a very nice image.

It must be so nice to process data from the northern hemisphere.

[Ironbird (Terri)]

for what it's worth ... I've applied secret-enhancement protocol to the original.
Kinda interesting in my estimation. Thanks to RickS for the original post.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Great colours, very 3D - well done on a great image Rick

Thanks, Andy.

Originally Posted by ozstronomer

Great image Rick, love the colour palette

Geoff

Ta, Geoff. It took a few applications of ColorMask.

Originally Posted by RobF

Whew. That's a tour-de-force Rick.
Amazing image

Thanks, Rob!

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

That's a nice image Rick. Interesting colours and great detail. Maybe a bit too contrasty for me but still a very nice image.

It must be so nice to process data from the northern hemisphere.

Thanks, Paul. I do enjoy the variety of new objects, even those that northerners are sick to death of It's also nice to have data even when the weather is poor here.

Cheers,
Rick.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Ironbird

for what it's worth ... I've applied secret-enhancement protocol to the original.
Kinda interesting in my estimation. Thanks to RickS for the original post.

Hi Terri,

I'm still struggling to determine whether you're showing something new in the data or just creating and enhancing artifacts. Do you have an explanation of what your images are showing?

Cheers,
Rick.

[Ironbird (Terri)]

well Rick ... I applied my enhancement technique to some thermal images of
home heatloss .. a good test image I would submit. I applied my enhancement routine twice and found no major geometric distortion (occurring). Subtle variations where nicely accented (and preserved).

High brightness regions were "decomposed" into presumably their constituent colors - showing detail and presumably structure in otherwise non-useful regions.

So to answer the question: "are we seeing anything new?" I would answer with a qualified "yes! we are". Perhaps not eye-pokingly obviously so in the
elephant trunk image but definitely obviously-so in galactic nuclei imagery as well as tenuous nebulae shots. Gas fields extending way further out than one would deduce strictly from the unenhanced original.

I'm "around" .. just juggling a million hats .. I'll be sure to post more images -- perhaps a few "before and after" gifs < this should prove insightful as to the utility of my protocol. 10-4!