I completed my first HaRGB image. NGC 281 is nicknamed the Pacman nebula as it bears some resemblance to the video game. I kept this wide field as it appears to be heading towards the bright star Schedar in Cassiopeia. For those not in the know, that is combining Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) exposures with regular color (RGB) exposures. I pretty much followed the method described in detail by Trevor Jones from Astrobackyard.com (HaRGB Tutorial). Since he already went over what to do I will just show you my results and give you my thoughts. Long and short, my results are not as good as I had hoped. I was expecting better Ha detail but this may be due to my inexperience with Ha-processing. However, the results are promising and I should improve with more experience. The other thing is it was really cool shooting a nebula during nearly full moon, I really enjoyed that and just being able to shoot exposures when the moon is out is worth perfecting this technique.
Image A - RGB
Image B - Ha
Image C - HaRGB
Image D - New HaRGB, re-stacked and reprocessed for better detail
I have more images along the way on my website (
http://kurt-zeppetello.blogspot.com/2017/11/ngc-281-pacman-completed.html).
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