vdB 152 is a faint reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. Its dusty trail is part of a much larger molecular cloud complex in the Cepheus region.

Although I collected many hours of Ha data, I blended very little into the final image because of poor SNR (I should've exposed longer for each sub).

Equipment:

OTA: William Optics GT81 w/0.8x reducer (382mm fl at f/4.7)

Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G (HEQ-5)

Guidescope: Orion 50mm guidescope

Guiding camera: Orion StarShoot Autoguider

Imaging camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool

Software:

SGP

PHD2

CdC

PixInsight

Acquisition:

Location: Flower Mound, TX for Ha(Bortle 7), Atoka, OK for LRGB(Bortle 3)

Dates: 9/4/17, 9/6/17, 9/7/17, 9/11/17, 9/18/17, 10/12/17, 10/16/17

Gain: 200 Offset: 50 for Ha

Gain: 76 Offset: 15 for LRGB

Camera temp: -20C

Ha: 390x180" Astrodon 5nm

L: 38x300"

R: 21x300"

G: 18x300"

B: 20x300"

Total integration time: 27hr 35min (although the data really only represents 8hr 5min because of lightly incorporated Ha data).

64x darks per calibration

30x flats per calibration

200x bias per calibration

Preprocessing:

Batch PreProcessing script to generate calibrated images

StarAlignment to register all frames to the reference

LocalNormalization of all registered frames (per channel)

ImageIntegration

DrizzleIntegration

DynamicCrop each master

DBE applied to L

ABE applied to Ha, R, G, B

Using PixelMath, blended linear Ha with linear masters (30% into Lum, 50% into Red, 10% into Blue)

RGB Processing:

Linear fit to Blue channel

ChannelCombination to create RGB (technically HaRGHaB)

PhotometricColorCalibration

SCNR green (50%)

TGV and MMT noise reduction (via Jon Rista's method)

HistogramTransformation x3

CurvesTransformation for saturation of nebulosity

CurvesTransformation for saturation of stars

HistogramTransformation to bring in black point and slightly stretch

L Processing:

Deconvolution

HistogramTransformation x2

Ended up creating a duplicate starless image just to create a mask consisting of only nebula (I know right)

Used that nebula mask on the original image in conjunction with ExponentialTransformation (S/M/I function) to push dusty areas x2

LocalHistogramTransformation with inverted StarMask

Combined L and RGB using LRGBCombination tool

SCNR green (100%)

Resampled to 50% for web posting