Elephant's Trunk Nebula

Re-Process!

 

I re-visited my image of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula in Cepheus taken last year using the Esprit 100 and ASI294MC Pro.

 

A Duo-NB filter was used to collect dramatic Ha and OIII details with my color camera.

 

I didn't re-stack the data and start from scratch - just tweaked the final image. Lazy, right?

 

To achieve this image, I created a new luminance layer using a 80R/10G/10B channel mix.

 

This layer was stretched more aggressively than the underlying data using curves and Adobe Camera Raw.

 

I also pulled that blue channel WAY up to cool the image down.

 

The original image was VERY pink (as usual) do to setting the black point with globally stretched channels (with a DOMINANT H-Alpha signal in the red channel).

 

Time to step back and look at it... until I re-process it again. 😄

 

I promise to stop talking about the Elephant's Trunk Nebula for a while. 🐘

 

Total Exposure Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

(22 x 5 minutes)

 

Mount: iOptron CEM60 center-balanced equatorial mount

Telescope: Sky-Watcher 100ED Super APO triplet

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro

Reducer: Sky-Watcher 2-Element Field Corrector

Filter: STC Astro Duo-Narrowband Filter

Autoguiding: Starfield 60mm Guide Scope Package

Done