Narayan Mukkavilli
The Witch Head Nebula
Imaged from my astronomy club's dark site in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, Australia
Total integration- 1.5 hours ( 5 minute subs)
nearly one hour of data was discarded due to thin cloud bloating the brighter stars.
Equipment
Samyang 135 mm f /2.4
HEQ5 pro
Optolong UV/IR filter
ASIAIR. ZWO ASI183MCpro
Software
ASIAIR app
AstroPixel Processor
Photoshop CS6 with NoiseXterminator plug in
Starnet++ v2
processing notes
the main challenge was the bright stars with halos- possibly due to cloud. Removed the worst frames but still created a processing headache.
In the end used the unstretched stacked image for star layer; clone stamped out the brightest stars in the stretched image before star removal in Starnet++.
this process left its residue unfortunately which will be apparent to pixel peepers. Edit: I probably stretched the data too aggressively. So should reprocess to eliminate or at least reduce the colour blotching.
Hopefully at some point in future can reshoot under better conditions.
It should be noted that i have made 4 previous attempts to image this object from my Bortle 6 backyard, using different filters and telescopes. Not one result was even passable. This is a very very faint object and dark skies are a must
The Witch Head Nebula
Imaged from my astronomy club's dark site in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, Australia
Total integration- 1.5 hours ( 5 minute subs)
nearly one hour of data was discarded due to thin cloud bloating the brighter stars.
Equipment
Samyang 135 mm f /2.4
HEQ5 pro
Optolong UV/IR filter
ASIAIR. ZWO ASI183MCpro
Software
ASIAIR app
AstroPixel Processor
Photoshop CS6 with NoiseXterminator plug in
Starnet++ v2
processing notes
the main challenge was the bright stars with halos- possibly due to cloud. Removed the worst frames but still created a processing headache.
In the end used the unstretched stacked image for star layer; clone stamped out the brightest stars in the stretched image before star removal in Starnet++.
this process left its residue unfortunately which will be apparent to pixel peepers. Edit: I probably stretched the data too aggressively. So should reprocess to eliminate or at least reduce the colour blotching.
Hopefully at some point in future can reshoot under better conditions.
It should be noted that i have made 4 previous attempts to image this object from my Bortle 6 backyard, using different filters and telescopes. Not one result was even passable. This is a very very faint object and dark skies are a must