M20 Trifid Nebula - LHaRGB with synthetic Lum
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:37 am
A fairly long integration of the reflection (blue) and emission (red) nebula of M20, the fabulous 'Trifid Nebula'. This is a large HII region in Sagittarius, located about 5,200 light years away.
Full capture details and a high resolution version can be viewed here: http://www.astrobin.com/134243/ The image was captured a few months ago from my Adelaide surburban backyard, using an Orion ED80T CT apo astrograph (at f/4.8), mounted on an AZ-EQ6. The CCD camera was an Orion StarShoot G3 mono, guided with PHD2 using a think OAG and an ASI120MM-S guide camera. It's taken me a while to dedicate the time required to do the processing!
The image is composed of the following:
Lum = 56 x 5 min
Ha = 18 x 10 min
R, G & B = 56 x 5 min for each channel
Total integration time of 21.7 hours.
I used the Ha data to really make the central emission region stand out above the background. I developed a synthetic luminance channel by blending an exposure-based weighting of the L, Ha, R, G and B luminances. All subs were unbinned.
Captured from late Aug to early Sept 2014, as weather permitted. Pre-processed with flats (light box), bad pixel map (based on 70 darks) and bias in Nebulosity. Aligned and Drizzled in DSS.
Post-processed in StarTools -- geez I love this software, it makes things so easy and 'natural'.
Full capture details and a high resolution version can be viewed here: http://www.astrobin.com/134243/ The image was captured a few months ago from my Adelaide surburban backyard, using an Orion ED80T CT apo astrograph (at f/4.8), mounted on an AZ-EQ6. The CCD camera was an Orion StarShoot G3 mono, guided with PHD2 using a think OAG and an ASI120MM-S guide camera. It's taken me a while to dedicate the time required to do the processing!
The image is composed of the following:
Lum = 56 x 5 min
Ha = 18 x 10 min
R, G & B = 56 x 5 min for each channel
Total integration time of 21.7 hours.
I used the Ha data to really make the central emission region stand out above the background. I developed a synthetic luminance channel by blending an exposure-based weighting of the L, Ha, R, G and B luminances. All subs were unbinned.
Captured from late Aug to early Sept 2014, as weather permitted. Pre-processed with flats (light box), bad pixel map (based on 70 darks) and bias in Nebulosity. Aligned and Drizzled in DSS.
Post-processed in StarTools -- geez I love this software, it makes things so easy and 'natural'.