Category: Deep Sky

I’ve reworked this image a bit. I watched a video and got some ideas. I split the three channels out and processed each individually before recombining. The capture was with an L-eNhance filter that lets in Ha, OIII, and Hb. The Ha is red of course, the OIII is kind of green and Hb is kind of blue so I pretended it was a clear cut split for the three colors and frequencies. Anyway, once split I did one automatic levels stretch on each and one manual curves on each. Then on green and blue I did a brightness/contrast layer (two for the blue I think) to try to get them close to the contrast level seen in the red without the extra work. Then recombine, crop, and dust enhance and star size reduction actions. Although the colors are not “real”, I like the results.

I decided to spend Thanksgiving evening at the River Ridge Observatory shooting the North American Nebula (NGC 7000). I shot this nebula a few months ago but I decided to do so again to see what I’ve learned since then. The Moon was near full but I used my Optolong L-eNhance filter to restrict wavelengths to Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III. I used my C11 with Hyperstar, it was auto-guided and this image was made from 12 5-minute subs with flats and darks applied. All post processing was done in Photoshop. I was a little aggressive in processing to bring out the details in the center, but the reddish hue at top and bottom volunteered itself.

Wednesday night was a good night at the River Ridge Observatory. Crisp temperatures, no wind or dew, and clear steady skies. No technical difficulties either. My goal was to shoot the Heart and Soul Nebulas. Yes, that is their nicknames. Their official names are IC 1805 and IC 1848, respectively. Both are large emission nebulas, I suspect they are part of the same molecular cloud but I don’t know that for a fact. It’s kind of obvious why the one is the Heart Nebula while the other looks more like a fish to me, specifically a coelacanth, and what does a soul look like anyway? Or maybe a boot print in the snow.Both images were shot with my 11″ SCT with Hyperstar adapter to shoot at f/1.9 with the dual narrowband L-eNhance filter to select specific emission bands of light. 12 five minute images stacked together with flats and darks. Then virtually identical processing done in Photoshop.