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Description: The Flaming Star and Tadpole nebulae are located in the constellation of Auriga. This region is a mixture of emission and reflection nebulae. Both exhibit a tremendous amount of emissions across the Hydrogen Alpha, Sulphur and Oxygen spectrums. The Flaming Star nebula was framed to live up to its name by showcasing tall flames with super hot stars. In particular the star AE Auriga is a O-type star which might have been ejected from a collision of multiple star systems near Orion. (Source : Nasa) The intense blue starlight is actually reflected by the nebula's dust. It is expected that this star will burn out rapidly and result in a supernova.

Located 1500 light years away and spanning 5 light years across you can view this nebula with a small telescope and it really becomes outstanding with Ha filter use.


The Tadpole nebula is a stellar nursery located 12000 light years away and is in the background of this shot. The central gas cloud of oxygen is roughly 100 light years across and shaped by stellar winds. If you look closely you can see small tadpole like objects each of which are 10 light years long (!!). Both nebulae are exceptional targets for the fall and winter in the Northern Hemisphere.


Acquisition :
129 Ha x 300s
157 Oiii x 300s
87 Sii x 300s

Data is from 2022 and 2023

Pixinsight Processing:
Non-Linear
WBPP v 2.5.9
30 Bias, 30 Dark, 30 Dark Flats, 30 Flats for each filter

For each filter :
Linear Fit with Ha as a reference; use statistics and histogram to verify results
DBE : Tolerance 6.0 ; smoothing .5, shadows 5.0 only use subtraction (done 3 times)
NoiseXTerminator
StarXTerminator : Save off stars for combination later
STF: Use the zoom and slider features to bring out details, watch where the sky and noise meet and clipped
Clone stamp to remove an artifact around one star in the Oxygen filter.

Make a Lum images based on Ha starless
Use STF to boost brightness and be very careful not to blow out any details or cause artifacts in the background.

Starless Linear :
Apply STF to histogram for each filter
Linear LUM + SHO Combination done with Multichannel Synthesis.
SCNR to remove green
Dark Structures Enhancement
HDR Multiscale Transformation

Stars Linear
Small histogram and curves adjustments to avoid blowing out stars. Deconvolution/PSF was not needed.
Combined with Multichannel Synthesis
Curves adjustment for saturation just a bit

PixelMath : Combination of starless and stars

Copy Coordinates from Ha filter to new image
SpectroPhotoColorCalibration

Minor adjustments for artistic purposes.
Use Ha filter as a mask and bring out details
Use S filter as a mask and bring out details
Color Saturation

Rotated 180 degrees
Plate Solve
Annotate

Added RGB stars, 30x120s for each filter

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