Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7380  ·  PK107-00.1  ·  Sh2-142  ·  Sh2-143
NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula), Joel Shepherd
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NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula)

NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula), Joel Shepherd
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NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula)

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Description

NGC-7380 in SHO.

Processing on this started off normally -- calibration and tone-mapping the narrowband channels -- and then went off the rails. Normally, I'd create a synthetic luminance by combining the original Ha with the O-iii and S-ii tone maps. Unfortunately some of my Ha data was slightly out of focus with the result that I had to choose between bloated stars or severely clipped luminance.

Hmm. What to do. I ended up working over the combined tone map image more than usual: two rounds of LocalHistogramEqualization with a range mask to heighten contrast in the nebula, curves to increase overall contrast and restore a bit of saturation, MultiscaleMedianTransform with a small amount of bias at layers 1-5 to sharpen details, and a final round of curves for contrast. Then I added the RGB stars using PixelMath, and used a gentle round of SCNR on the background (nebula protected by a range mask) to desaturate the red channel a bit.

The result is probably a little less crisp than it would be with a proper luminance but I like that it captured faint nebulosity in the region and the stars were prettier than the hard white stars that tone-mapping + luminance usually produces.

Comments

Revisions

    NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula), Joel Shepherd
    Original
  • Final
    NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula), Joel Shepherd
    B

B

Description: First upload was darker than intended: lightened background slightly.

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NGC-7380 (Wizard Nebula), Joel Shepherd