Popular Post Astrobdlbug Posted October 31, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted October 31, 2022 (edited) Its been a frustrating month for astro imaging - lots of short opportunities to grab a hour or two here and there through infrequent gaps in cloud cover and at least in my location high humidity and dew dripping off everything. I had set out with a great plan to go long and deep on the Cave Nebula to complete a series of images in Cepheus that started back in August with Elephant Trunk, September with NGC 7822, Early October with Sh2-132 Lion nebula and finally Cave Nebula. I wanted to invest 30hrs in each, but as the months rolled into Autumn and the weather has become very changable wet and windy that 30hr target seemed unrealistic and even getting half that felt like a lot of effort, hence Lion nebula and this Cave nebula are about 15hr images - This image has a lot of Ha, as the moon was a big factor when I started this project so 3nm Ha is the only filter worth using with 80%+ moon around. Unfortunately the weather turned and getting Oiii and Sii has been frustrating and I didnt get a huge amount of data for these channels, Sunday evening after clocks changed was clear(ish) at 6pm so I decide to start up a session, the initial subs were not great but as the evening progressed and despite the forecast saying I should be under 100% cloud cover the seeing improved and I captured about 55 subs but dumped quite a few due to poor quality and clouds - I decided to process what I have captured and create a SHO image with the detail all coming from the Ha channel as a luminance, so there is a good amount of detail in the image, but I really pushed Oiii and Sii to get a SHO colour mix Anyway here is the image info and the image Interesting Wiki fact is that the name "Cave Nebula" was coined for this object by Patrick Moore The image shows the diffuse Cave nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula and is located approx 2400 light years from earth. Aquisition Details: Stellamira 90mm EDT / ASI2600MM / Antlia 3nm Sii, Ha, Oiii Dates: 10 Oct 2022 · 14 Oct 2022 · 15 Oct 2022 · 18 Oct 2022 · 20 Oct 2022 · 30 Oct 2022 Frames: Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2": 115×300″(9h 35′) Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2": 27×300″(2h 15′) Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2": 39×300″(3h 15′) Integration: 15h 5′ Bryan Reprocess: was not happy with the Oiii cyan/blue and have rebalanced that as the original was a bit oversaturated to my eyes Edited November 2, 2022 by Astrobdlbug 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted November 1, 2022 Share Posted November 1, 2022 Great work Bryan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carastro Posted November 2, 2022 Share Posted November 2, 2022 Very nice result. What Birtle are your skies? carole 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astrobdlbug Posted November 2, 2022 Author Share Posted November 2, 2022 30 minutes ago, Carastro said: Very nice result. What Birtle are your skies? Thanks Carole, according to Clear Outside I am Bortle 5, however there has been a huge amount of new housing and warehousing built in the area in recent years so I am probably more Bortle 6, possible even 7 depending on what part of the sky the target is in, The sky glow toward the M1 motorway and the warehousing built at the jct there has increased hugely and was a big factor in me moving to narrowband in 2019/2020 and investing in 3nm filters rather than 7nm I started with. Its also why I built the Azimuth table for my POD as imaging higher int the sky also helps Bryan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmack1 Posted November 2, 2022 Share Posted November 2, 2022 That is probably the nicest cave nebula I've seen. Great colours and nice contrasty detail. really well done. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astrobdlbug Posted November 2, 2022 Author Share Posted November 2, 2022 4 minutes ago, Dmack1 said: That is probably the nicest cave nebula I've seen. Great colours and nice contrasty detail. really well done. thank you - very kind words - I spent a huge amount of time trying to get some overall clarity in the image as it is a very messy part of the sky - so much hydrogen, some initial processes resulted in an image that looked like space through dense fog !! So I re-visited the Ha and was a lot more considered in the stretch and contrast I also looked towards Sara Wagner's rendition on her website https://www.swagastro.com/sh2-155.html as I think her processing and colour palette choices are outstanding and I used her image as a guide/inspiration for the direction of travel when processing my image. Bryan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galileo Posted November 2, 2022 Share Posted November 2, 2022 that is very very cool indeeed 👏 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vicki Posted November 5, 2022 Share Posted November 5, 2022 Absolutely love this! So much depth. Amazing perseverance 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P Holdsworth Posted November 6, 2022 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Very nice Bryan ! Love the colour palette especially in the second image👍 Paul 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinS Posted November 10, 2022 Share Posted November 10, 2022 Nice image Bryan. As you say it has been a very frustrating couple of months. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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