Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Crab nebula  ·  LBN 833  ·  M 1  ·  MQ J053354.42+215825.5  ·  MQ J053403.04+215700.3  ·  MQ J053403.66+220230.1  ·  MQ J053445.67+220558.1  ·  MQ J053445.89+220011.4  ·  MQ J053454.97+220342.7  ·  NGC 1952  ·  PGC 1660066  ·  Sh2-244  ·  WISEA J053434.35+220313.6  ·  WISEA J053444.08+215916.4
Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
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Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband

Revision title: More natural background processing

Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
Powered byPixInsight

Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband

Revision title: More natural background processing

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Long before getting into astrophotography, I've been awed by Hubble's class image of Messier 1 in its reds, golds and emerald green.  

While I don't have the same filters and wavelengths available, newer consumer ALP-T Ha/[OIII] and [SII]/Hb filters open up new possibilities to see what features are strongest in each channel and try to recreate the overall look: 
  • The outermost details are most visible in Hydrogen-alpha.
  • Oxygen-III strongly correlates with Hydrogen-alpha
  • The strong filaments are prominent in Sulfur-II
  • Hydrogen-beta (not typically imaged!) is the only channel that strongly emphasizes the soft "core"

Based on matching this to the iconic NASA image, I went with an Ha-S-O-Hb palette: 
  • Ha (red-orange): x1.25
    • (100,25,1)

  • [SII] (gold): x2.5
    • (100,100,1)

  • [OIII] (blue-green): x1
    • (1,50,100)

  • Hb (teal): x6
    • (1,100,100)

Deconvolution with BlurXT brought out a lot of the finer filament structure. I was really pleasantly surprised how close we can get to these iconic images with the newer narrowband options available. 

I just added a separate post with intermediate processing steps here: https://www.astrobin.com/popx3s

It's worth mentioning that these were imaged on an 8" EdgeHD running without its 0.7x reducer. It plate solves out to about 2100mm, very close to the expected value of 2125mm (f/10.456). Because I'm imaging in narrowband and at a relatively slow f/10.456, I decided to use 10 minute exposures.

Prints available at: https://mathcancer.darkroom.com/products/nebulas/1292080

Comments

Revisions

  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    Original
  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    B
  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    C
  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    D
  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    E
  • Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    F
  • Final
    Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin
    G

B

Title: Hydrogen-alpha

Description: This is my raw Hydrogen-alpha stack in my palette, setting all other channels to x0 in AstroPixelProcessor.

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Sulfur-II

Description: This is my raw Sulfur-II stack in my palette, setting all other channels to x0 in AstroPixelProcessor.

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Oxygen-III

Description: This is my raw Oxygen-III stack in my palette, setting all other channels to x0 in AstroPixelProcessor.

Uploaded: ...

E

Title: Hydrogen-beta

Description: This is my raw Hydrogen-beta stack in my palette, setting all other channels to x0 in AstroPixelProcessor.

Uploaded: ...

F

Title: Slightly improved background handling

Uploaded: ...

G

Title: More natural background processing

Description: I went back to an earlier version with more natural background processing.

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Hubble-Inspired Messier 1 Crab Nebula - 4 color narrowband, Paul Macklin