IC1805 Heart Nebula

IC1805, better known as the “Heart nebula”, is located in the constellation Cassiopeia, in a star rich area of the galaxy. IC1805 is an emission nebula consisting of ionized hydrogen and dark clouds of dust.. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1787, while conducting his survey of deep sky objects, which led to the NGC catalog. Raw data was provided by Marko Labor and the dslr_astro_image_processing group on Yahoo. Processing was done at Transit Dreams Observatory using Pixinsight software.

 

IC1805_Heart Nebula

Starting with Pixinsight

M8-Lagoon Nebula

(full size image available in Nebulae gallery)

There are two major image processing programs astro imagers use to create the beautiful images you see across the internet. They are Photoshop and Pixinsight. Yes, I know there are others like Images Plus, Nebulosity, along with some freeware, etc., but Photoshop and Pixinsight are the most prevalent.

Until this point in time, I’ve been working with Photoshop to process my images. It has a relatively long learning curve, especially for astrophotos. I’ve been learning many of the techniques used to produce APOD-like images, but have been unable to process my data in a consistent manor. I try to maintain a consistent work flow, but I still find I’m not getting the consistent results I’m looking for. Each time I process the same set of data, the images come out differently. Sometimes the differences are subtle, and sometimes the changes are dramatic, and not intentional.

Last week, I broke down and decided to go in a new direction. I downloaded and installed Pixinsight. I had previously shied away from Pixinsight for two reasons. First, I already had a deep investment in Photoshop, in time and money; and secondly, Pixinsight appeared to have an even steeper learning curve, with less documentation. Recently, I’ve found some newer YouTube video tutorials that are taking the mystery out of using this software, so I took the plunge. Hopefully I’ll be able to produce more consistent, and better results with Pixinsight. To me, Pixinsight’s approach looks more mathematical, where Photoshop is more artsy. I may still incorporate some final-touch ups in Photoshop until I can master Pixinsight.

The image of the Lagoon Nebula(M8) above is my first attempt using Pixinsight to process an image. The image could use a bit of deconvolution, and it’s still a bit noisy,but overall I’m very happy with the result. After I become more familiar with the basics I’ll start to delve more into the more intricate processes. I hope you like it.

I’ll be attending some workshops at the North East Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC) at the end of the month, in Suffern,NY, where I hope to learn more about this powerful program.

 

 

New H-Alpha Gallery

M42_in Ha

M42_in Ha

A new H-Alpha image gallery has been added to the gallery pages, under the Nebula tab.  This gallery contains monochrome images using the 7nm Orion H-Alpha filter.

You’ll notice a new format for this gallery.  This format allows the images to be shown full screen and is less restrictive than the old format.  It also allows image details to be included.  Just click on the image to bring up the details, and then the view more button for the full size image.  Seeing the full size image will also highlite all of the defects in my processing skills.

Eventually all of the image galleries will be converted to this new format.

Most of the images were captured before, or after asteroid measurement runs, so most of them were captured with only 1-2 hours of data collection. At a later date if additional RGB data is captured, those images will be added to the Nebula gallery.  I find it striking that so much contrast and detail can be captured in monochrome images. I hope you enjoy them. 

Here’s a link to the page  http://www.tdo.space/hydrogen-alpha/

Monkey Head Nebula

NGC 2174/2175 consists of the  Monkey Head emission nebula, and its associated star cluster.  It is approximately 6,400 light years distant, located in the constellation Orion.

The top image is the Ha image as processed in Photoshop.  The second image was processed the same way, but the popular red tone in the Ha image was added using Caboni’s astronomy tools, a set of plugins for Photoshop.

When I have the opportunity, I hope to add a few more hours of Ha data, and RGB for the star colors. 

Below is the capture data:

Object: NGC 2174/2175 Monkey Head Nebula
Constellation: Orion
Telescope: ES127mm F7.5 APO Refractor
Mount: Paramount MX+
Camera: ATIK One 6.0
Filters: Orion 7nm Ha
Guide Scope: OAG
Guide Camera: SBIG STi
Total Integration: 80 minutes
Image Capture: SkyX camera addon
Guiding: SkyX
Stacking/calibration: MaximDl
Post Processing:Photoshop CS5