IC405 - The Flaming Star Nebula

Constellation: Auriga

Distance: ~ 1500 lys

Magnitude: 9.2

Stars: ~100,000

 

CAPTURE INFO

-------------------

Scope Centering:

Right Ascension 5h 16m 28s

Declination +34° 21’ 22”

 

Date Captured:

November 10, Home (Bortle 7)

 

EQUIPMENT

Optics: William Optics 61ii doublet refractor @ 368mm FL

William Optics adjustable field flattener

 

Camera: ZWO 533mc Pro (OSC) @ gain 390

 

Filters:

- 2" Optolong L-Enhance using filter drawer

 

Mount:

- iOptron GEM 28

 

Guiding:

- ZWO 120mm mini (red filter)

- William Optics 32mm f/3.75 UniGuide Guidescope

- ZWO ASI Air Pro

- Used previous calibration

- Dither: 2 pixels, every 2 frames

 

Acquisition:

- ZWO ASI Air Pro (Plan Mode)

 

IMAGE CALIBRATION (PixInsight)

 

Weighted Batch Preprocessing

- Lights, Darks, Flat Darks, Bias

- Cosmetic Correction

- Stats

- (61) 180 second subs

- Normalize Scale Gradient Script to nomalize background of images

 

NON LINEAR PROCESSING (PixInsight)

1. Dynamic Crop

2. Dynamic Background Extraction (2 times)

3. Color Calibration

4. Background Neutralization

5. Linear Noise Reduction using MultiscaleLinearTransform

6. Another Linear Noise Reduction using MultiscaleLinearTransform

7. Photometric Color Calibration

 

LINEAR PROCESSING (PixInsight)

1. EZ Soft Stretch script

2. EZ Star Reduction script (Adam Block)

3. SCNR on the G channel (Maximum Neutral)

4. Created a Star Mask to protect the stars from processing

5. Ran HDRMultiscaleLinearTransform to enhance nebula's darker regions

6. Ran a slight "S" curve on RGB, using CurvesTransformation to darken background and enhance nebula

7. Slight enhancement to the Saturatation using CurvesTransformation

7. LocalHistogramEqualization @ 25 for contrast on nebula

8. LocalHistogramEqualization @ 25 to further contrast nebula

9. MultiscaleLinearTransform to sharpen detail in the nebula

10. Increased saturation of the blue channel ever sl slightly using Curves

11. Exported to TIF and ran Topaz Denoise AI to slightly improve the noise.

12. Made image ready for the web using ICCProfileTransformation

 

Done