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

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: IC 2159 · Monkey Head Nebula · NGC 2174 · NGC 2175 · Sh2-252

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

Link: https://www.garylopezphotography.com

Powered byPixInsight

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

Link: https://www.garylopezphotography.com

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.

Final
Original
B
C
D
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: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4107827
PixInsight job	UHOW5J54E1Z0EH5TXIWGUBA5IZESP4FG
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	06h09m45s.680
RA (top/left)	06h07m53s.370
RA (top/right)	06h09m28s.539
RA (bottom/right)	06h11m36s.473
RA (bottom/left)	06h10m01s.692

Dec (center)	+20°31′09″.70
Dec (top/left)	+20°42′33″.79
Dec (top/right)	+20°02′54″.89
Dec (bottom/right)	+20°19′41″.17
Dec (bottom/left)	+20°59′24″.36

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

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

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

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

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