Sandqvist 111: At the Interface

OTA: CDK 24
Camera: Moravian 61000Pro
Observatory: Heaven's Mirror
Date of Capture: Apr 24
Date of Processing: Apr 24

Exposures Used:
R: 15 x 900 sec
G: 22 x  "
B: 18 x  "
H: 28 x 1200 sec
Total Exposure time: 26.1 hours
Image Width: 30' 31"

Processing Tools:
1.    Commercial: PixInsight, Topaz, Radiant Photo, 3DLUT Creator, [DreamStudio]
2.    Pixinsight Addons: NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, GraXpert
3.    My Scripts: NB_Assistant, AC_Restar, Subframe Weighting Tool (Excel w/ J. Hunt), ColorTweaker

Target Description:
Image A, the default view, is Sandqvist 111, as it appears from processing the available image (less the L). Image B is an abstracted interpretation—'Universe 2'.

The darkest clouds have active edges facing the top of the image. Apparently, the background nebula is moving downward (southward) relative to the dark nebulae and forming a shock interface along the northern edges of the dark nebulae, at least where the dark nebulae have enough density to impede the relative movement of the background nebula.

Processing Description:
Image A was processed in two ways, and the results blended. The first method was to put the raw Ha into the raw Red and then do a linear fit of that image with the G and B. The second method extracted the Ha image's emission line and added that extracted component to the R. The blending of these two approaches led to the result shown. Although the two approaches sound very similar, the results were not similar, hence the blending step.

Image B (Universe 2)  is an AI+Image A blend. DreamStudio was presented with Image A and issued the verbal template, "Clouds from below violently impacting calm clouds above causing chaos, turbulence, lightening and explosive colors." ImageB is a blend of the "dream" with Image A, plus a little post-processing.

Luminance frames were available, but they lessened the image's color contrast and the impact of the fine-scale detail provided by the isolated Ha emission line. (A photon registered through the L filter could come from any source emitting photons of any color. This egalitarian filter cannot isolate the detail of the Ha emission sources from its confounding surrounding emissions.)

Alex Woronow