HaRGB of the Sadr Region / The Butterfly Nebula

This Image shows the Sadr Region with it's strong Hydrogen-alpha emission.

 

I originally only planed to shoot this target in RGB but with the moon out I thought I would go for a HaRGB Image. The RGB data was captured with my Canon EOS 6D between the 23th and 30th of July. The total integration time of the RGB image is about 6,5 Hours and was done using 4 minute long exposures at ISO 1600.

Now I wanted to shoot some Ha data in order to create this HaRGB Image, but my Canon EOS 600Da has a smaller sensor than my 6D, so I had to do a mosaic. Thankfully N.I.N.A has a built in Mosaic Planner which worked perfectly and enabled me to create a 4 Panel Ha Mosaic. Each Panel has roughly 2,5 Hours of total integration time and was captured at the beginning of August. So the total integration time of the Ha Image would be around 10 Hours. Since all four Panels overlap in the middle, the data there is noticably cleaner than on the edges. I used some cold packs in order to cool down the sensor of my 600Da for less thermal noise. With that the sensor sits at around 5°C below ambient, definitely worth it in the hot summer months.

 

The total integration time of the whole image is about 16,5 Hours.

 

All images were calibrated and stacked in Pixinsight. I followed the Mosaic Tutorial on Lightvortex in order to create the Ha Mosaic. Both RGB and Ha were combined with the NRGB Combine Module in Pixinsight. Further edits were done in Darktable. I brought back some detail in the highlights of the star Sadr in GIMP with some underexposed images I took.

 

Camera RGB: Canon EOS 6D

Camera Ha: Canon EOS 600Da

Mount: Skywatcher EQ5 Pro

Telescope: Omegon Pro Astrograph 154/600 F4

Guide camera: Orion starshoot autoguider

Guidescope: Orion 50mm

Coma Corrector: Skywatcher aplanatic coma corrector

Filter: Ha 12nm Clip in

Done