Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Vulpecula (Vul)  ·  Contains:  Dumbbell nebula  ·  M 27  ·  NGC 6853
M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
M27 bicolor + RGB stars
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M27 bicolor + RGB stars

M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
M27 bicolor + RGB stars
Powered byPixInsight

M27 bicolor + RGB stars

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Description

This is my most ambitious project so far, the data was collected over 4 nights.

M27 is typically imaged with a CCD and 20 or 30-minute long subs to capture the dim outer halo of the planetary nebula. So I was very pleased to see the outer halo after only 2 hours of exposure per channel while using very short, high-gain subs with the ASI1600MM-C.

Resolution improved after deconvolution of the 2X drizzled stacks, and the stars in the OIII master measure 3.3 arc sec FWHM near the center of the frame. My Ha subs from the second night introduced some star bloat in the stack though and this initially resulted in bright red halos around the HOO stars. So I decided to remove the stars from both channels, tonemap the starless images and then added the monochrome OIII stars.

I also got some RGB after 3 weeks of clouds, but I'm a bit disappointed with the slightly bloated stars in the blue channel. My telescope should perform better. This was captured during a full moon, so the contrast in the nebula isn't great, but I mainly wanted to use the RGB stars to complement the narrow band data. The bright star on the right is magnitude 5.5 and causes a dim reflection, I removed this in Rev F during the addition of the RGB stars.

Thanks for looking, check out the full-size image for better detail.

UPDATE 09-08-2018:

Complete rework with a synthetic green channel, based on Marcel Drechsler's bi-color style (https://youtu.be/5a-OuhdEskg)

Comments

Revisions

  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    Original
  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    B
  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    C
  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    E
  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    F
  • Final
    M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    H
  • M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck
    I

B

Description: HDR compression of the bright regions and increased saturation

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Changed the teal color to blue for a more natural look

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: RGB only.

This was captured during a full moon, so the contrast in the nebula isn't great, but I mainly wanted to use the RGB stars to complement the narrow band data.

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: HOO with RGB stars.

Uploaded: ...

H

Description: Complete reprocessing with synthetic green channel

Uploaded: ...

I

Description: Larger field

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M27 bicolor + RGB stars, Victor Van Puyenbroeck