Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula (Jonathan Piques)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: LBN 862 · LBN 863 · LBN 864 · LDN 1587 · Sh2-261

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Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

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Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

This charming, relatively seldom-imaged little emission nebula is located a little over 3,000 light years away. While it's been a while since I have posted at all, it's been especially quite some time since I have done a narrowband image, so this was fun to process.

As far as processing approach, the data showed that this object had a very distinct yet somewhat weak Oiii signal, along with strong Ha and Sii components, so I tried to highlight that distinction, which you'll see in the blue central region. While I captured Ha, Oiii, and Sii, I ended up just using the Ha and Oiii--the Sii just didn't seem to add much, though I attribute that more to my mediocre processing abilities than anything else. To bring out the detail, after DBE, MureDenoise, and initial stretching, I used a HOO formula in Pixelmath to create an initial RGB image, and denoised it a little. I then removed the stars and tinkered with curves to get the colors and contrast in the ballpark. To create a luminance master, I used a mask to combine the distinct features of the Oiii master with the Ha master, then applied an attenuated HDRMT to the combined synthetic luminance. I then applied that luminance to the starless RGB image, and made curves adjustments until you get what you see here. As always, any commentary welcome.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5727496
PixInsight job	PGLJFQTUWW9KVEFXHDO5J7JDLCU2BLG0
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h08m49s.462
RA (top/left)	06h07m26s.475
RA (top/right)	06h10m01s.164
RA (bottom/right)	06h10m12s.739
RA (bottom/left)	06h07m37s.591

Dec (center)	+15°44′31″.49
Dec (top/left)	+15°27′14″.34
Dec (top/right)	+15°24′30″.10
Dec (bottom/right)	+16°01′47″.70
Dec (bottom/left)	+16°04′30″.89

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Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

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Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

Sh2-261 / Lower's Nebula

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