After two month of short nights, I could finally capture something new. Feels good to enjoy this peaceful hobby again. I had quite some changes since the last time - I finally switched to MONO. I am having some trouble with back-focus and adjustment but at least I could test the basic acquisition and processing of MONO data.
I chose a reflection nebula as First Light, to start with a more simplistic LRGB processing. I only managed to gather 3.5 hours of luminance (and another 3.5h of RGB) because I was also experimenting with Bin1 and Bin2. The average moon phase of about 75% also wasn't helping... but in the end I had some educational crafting sessions.
I will revisit NGC 7023 next year since it's such a magnificent object. Hopefully I have improved my processing until then
Iris Nebula: The beautiful colors from this 1400ly distant nebula come from scattered light of its central star, which lies nestled in the abundant star fields of the constellation Cepheus. This nebula stretches roughly 6 light-years across and is of particular interest to scientists because of its colors. Reflection nebulae glow because they are made up of extremely tiny particles of solid matter, up to 10 or even 100 times smaller than dust particles on Earth. These particles diffuse the light around them, giving the nebula a second-hand glow that’s typically bluish (like our sky). While the Iris Nebula appears predominantly blue, it includes large filaments of deep red, indicating the presence of an unknown chemical compound likely based on hydrocarbons. Studying nebulae like this one helps astronomers learn more about the ingredients that combine to make stars.
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