There is a lot happening in this glorious region in the constellation of Sagittarius. The intense HII emission area IC 1284 glows pink surrounded by a swirl of brown dust, dark nebulae, broader Ha emission and the myriad of mostly golden coloured stars that populate the central core of the Milky Way. All this is set as a backdrop to the two areas of blue reflection nebula NGC 6590 at left and NGC 6589 to the right, which add to the drama of the scene, like two piercing eyes.
In front of IC 1284, there is diffuse reflection nebula, which partially obscures the HII area behind.
I captured 11.5 hours of Ha and the richness of the hydrogen in this region can be readily appreciated in the Ha starless image in Revision E, whihc is accessed via the mouse-over. I used the Ha image to enhance the red channel to produce this LHaRGB image. The Red channel was extracted from the RGB MasterStack at the linear stage and rendered starless with StarXTerminator. The Ha MasterStack was also made starless in the same way. Per the Vicent Peris method as outlined in an article by Kayron Merceica, the Ha is used to enhance the Red channel and thence to produce a colour image with a further PixelMath expression, which includes a boost factor, so that the boost level can be optimised. I ended up witha boost factor of 0.5
See:
https://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorial-combining-lrgb-with-narrowband.htmlOnce complete the stars are returned before further processing. I used a Super Luminance for the LRGB Combinationat the non linear stage to enhance the detail and colour.
The LRGB image (Revision D) ably demonstrates the beauty of this area. However, I hope you agree that the Ha enhancement brings much richness to the image. Revision F is a blink animation between the two images LRGB vs LHaRGB, if you are interested in a closer look at how the Ha enhances the image.
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