Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  IC 2159  ·  Monkey Head Nebula  ·  NGC 2174  ·  NGC 2175  ·  Sh2-252
Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
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Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study

Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
Powered byPixInsight

Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study

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Description

I posted an SHO Hubble palette rendition of these data last week. This is a reprocessing of those data with three different NB natural color approaches.

Version A uses a PI Pixel Math formula published by Arturas Medvedevas.

R: iif (Ha>0.15, ha, (Ha*0.8) + (OIII*0.2))

G: iif (Ha>0.5, 1-(1-OIII) * (1-(Ha-0.5)), OIII * (Ha+0.5))

B: iif (OIII>0.1, OIII, (Ha*0.3) + (OIII*0.2))

Version B uses a Pixel Math formula published by Steve Milne.

R: 0.5Ha + 0.5SII

G: 0.15Ha + 0.85OIII

B: OIII

Version C use my Pixel Math formula. My version uses linear Ha, SII, OIII channels in Pixel Math and stretches the resulting image with the RGB channels unlinked.

R: SII + (Ha*0.5)

G: (OIII + SII) *2

B: OIII

Finally, I have also include an HOO rendition (Version D) and my original SHO rendition (Version E) for comparison.

What version do you like the best?

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone that spent the time to consider and comment on these various approaches to creating a more natural color look to narrowband emission nebula data. In tallying the result of those analyses and comments I found that there are nearly as many opinions on what works best as there were options offered. I think that this result might be further evidence of the strong, independent thinking of our community of astrophotographers. No herd mentality here at Astrobin. Thank you all.

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
    Original
    Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
    B
    Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
    C
    Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
    D
    Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez
    E

B

Description: Steve Milne NB natural color Pixel Math formula

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Gary Lopez NB natural color Pixel Math formula

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: HOO version

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: SHO Hubble palette version

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) - NB Natural Color Study, Gary Lopez