StarTools

Captured IC 2944 Running Chicken Nebula over 2 clear nights last week using my Mono set up for the first time on this target. I've imaged this object many times before but using a 2600MC OSC and Antlia Dualband filter.
Unfortunately at my City Suburban location I have a limited view to the South East and no view to the South, so could only manage a few hours each night on this target.

Location : Sydney , Australia
Skies : Bortle 8 heavy light polluted skies
Conditions : Average to Good Seeing
New Moon
Very light NE wind
No Dew

Backyard semi permanent set up
Telescope : 8" f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon Fibre Newt
Mount : Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
Imaging Camera : ZWO 2600MM temp -10C , Gain 100
Coma Corrector : TS Optics GPU
Filter Wheel : ZWO 7 x 2"
Filters : Antlia 3nm Ha , Oiii and Sii
Guide Scope : Orion 60mm with helical focuser
Guide Camera : ZWO 120MM
34 x 3min subs Ha
28 x 3 min subs Oiii
30 x 3 min subs Sii
Darks from Library
Bias from Library
Flats Ha, Oiii , Sii
Tracking and Goto : Eqmod and Stellarium
Aquisition : APT
Guiding : PHD2 ( 0.45 to 0.55 arc sec total rms avg )
Analysed , Calibrated and Stacked in ASTAP
Processed in Startools V1.8 ( Data Sets loaded into Compose , Color SHO: HST preset with tweaks )
Also used Startools Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution ( 15 samples , 12 iterations ) to improve the resolution ( de blurr )
I did notice that particularly the Oiii and Sii signals were quite weak on this target. Definitely requires many more hours to produce a better detailed image.
Total integration around 5 hours

Astrobin link below for full resolution….

https://www.astrobin.com/dnjp4i/


Thanks for Looking
Comments Welcome

Clear Skies
Martin

Nice, well done, Martin!
I like the not cropped version a little more, because of image composition and the neat contrasts, I think.

After looking at some broadband images of this object I understand that Ha is much stronger than OII and SII. It mainly seems to be a H-II region. And of course having more integration time is always better, but this already looks quite nice.

The bright star shows a hard ring around it’s core. I remember seeing something like that before. Do you have any idea, what’s causing that? Anyway, it would be easy to fix manually, if you mind.

I wonder why do you write down all the specs as text only in Astrobin instead of using the predefined properties and attributes?

Best regards, Dietmar.

Hi Dietmar,
Thanks for commenting
Yes the Oiii and Sii signals were very weak , in hindsight I should have compensated for that in my sub count , however I only get a small window of opportunity to image this object due to my house and trees etc… blocking its traverse
The large star artifact was caused by SV Decon ringing , nothing else , I did push the iterations are little too hard
My Apodization mask was really good as were the samples I chose. I always tend to push SV Decon too hard , default might have been enough at the end of the day
Maybe a touch up with Shrink using Dim preset might hide it a bit , didn’t really worry me all that much

In Astrobin , I just cut and paste a standard pre written text form and edit bits and pieces as I use this text on other forums as well.I still fill out the first 4 field boxes in Astrobin but find the remainder don’t cover what I like to say in relation to my capture and image results etc….
So doesn’t take me long to post an image
I’ve always presented my posts in all forums with a lot of information and detail , some folk do , some folk don’t
Thanks again

Clear skies
Martin

I saw an old YouTube clip on Startools ( Astronomy and Sailing UK about 4 years ago) where the chap used a final colour touch up in Canon DPP4 which seemed to improve the final image.
So I decided to try DPP4 on my IC 2944 to see if I could tidy up some minor colour issues

As the colour adjustments in DPP4 are quite comprehensive ( not just RGB ) and provide ever fine adjustments, it actually worked well to remove the magenta hue on the RHS Star field and reduce the blue / purple halo around the large star IC 2944.

I know Ivo probably wouldn’t agree with using DPP4 Colour adjustment after ST but I used it and found it has some merit when it comes to some minor fine tuning.

Anyway attached are the next revisions using DPP4

See what you think ?

Astrobin link below …..
https://www.astrobin.com/683sqg/

Comments welcome

Clear skies
Martin