Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  Iris Nebula  ·  NGC 7023

Image of the day 07/12/2012

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    NGC 7023, Iris Nebula, David Dearden
    NGC 7023, Iris Nebula
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    NGC 7023, Iris Nebula

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    Description

    The Iris was surprisingly easy to find with the Telrad; there are ample stars around on which you can line up. The central nebulosity is easy to see at 30 s exposure, and probably would be visible with 5 s without problems. Terrible wind conditions tonight, so I'm just hoping it will get calmer as the night rolls on (and that was the forecast, but it actually got worse). I'm running RA-unbalanced again, and have excellent guiding (except when the wind is shoving me around, which is often). Darks are not well temperature matched in this image.

    The revised version follows the recommendations of Matt McBee in the comments below. I think it is a vast improvement. Details of what I did: Digital development with sharpening, power stretch, curves, star reduction in N3, separate layer with GREYCStoration, CS5 color blotch, deep space, & space noise reduction in the GREYCStoration layer, then layer mask with a Gaussian blur to preserve enhancement in the center and remove noise from periphery; saturation boost the flattened image.

    Date: 10 Jul 2012

    Subject: NGC 7023, Iris Nebula

    Scope: AT8IN + 0.5x Antares telereducer

    Filter: none

    Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

    Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD

    Camera: DSI IIc

    Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.0.8

    Exposure: 60x180 s

    Stacking: Neb 3, bias included, normalize first, auto quality screen, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack

    Processing: Digital development with sharpening, power stretch, GREYCStoration, saturation boost in N3, CS5 levels, Astronomy Tools color blotch reduction, deep space noise reduction, star color enhance, star reduction, saturation boost.

    Comments

    Revisions

      NGC 7023, Iris Nebula, David Dearden
      Original
      NGC 7023, Iris Nebula, David Dearden
      B
    • Final
      NGC 7023, Iris Nebula, David Dearden
      C

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    NGC 7023, Iris Nebula, David Dearden