IC 2944 Running Chicken Nebula in SHO

[Startrek]

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

[decay]

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.

[Startrek]

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

[Startrek]

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