Clouds of the SMC? (Alex Woronow)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Tucana (Tuc) · Contains: 47 Tuc · 47 Tuc Cluster · IC 1655 · IC 1662 · NGC 104 · NGC 121 · NGC 152 · NGC 176 · NGC 220 · NGC 231 · NGC 242 · NGC 249 · NGC 256 · NGC 261 · NGC 267 · NGC 269 · NGC 290 · NGC 292 · NGC 294 · NGC 299 · NGC 306 · NGC 330 · NGC 339 · NGC 346 · NGC 361 · NGC 362 · NGC 371 · NGC 406 · NGC 416 · NGC 419 · And 24 more.

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Clouds of the SMC?

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Clouds of the SMC?

Clouds of the SMC?
FSQ 106 LRGB (Exposure = 4h)
Image subs source: A gift from Heaven—well, from Heaven’s Mirror, actually

The galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud hosts an abundance of reflection and emission nebulae, but the stars obscure much of the nebulae's structures. This image attempts to reveal some of that obscured structure—both gaseous clouds and star-density distributions.
The processing used in this endeavor involved removing the stars from the image (using StarXTerminator in PixInsight) and emphasizing the residual image’s structure, contrast, and color using Topaz. For aesthetics, I replaced the stars as a final step. Of course, recognizing and removing stars in a distant galaxy might just be a little problematic for SXT. So, most likely what appears here is, as suggested above, a mixture of nebulae and star-density variations. Nonetheless, this rendering reveals some details not as easily seen with ‘normal’ processing and satisfies a cursed need I seem to have that requires exploring alternative methods of DSO processing.
While the resulting image provided some modicum of satisfaction to my “need,” I wish I had HSO in addition to the RGB, but that's Astro-life, I guess.

Alex

Fine Art Astrophotography

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5330600
PixInsight job	5DCG1KIG5WCBEDA16WNZIJFNVBB9CP9T
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h56m54s.0
RA (top/left)	01h57m39s.10
RA (top/right)	23h55m12s.6
RA (bottom/right)	23h16m30s.5
RA (bottom/left)	02h37m42s.3

Dec (center)	-72°52′44″
Dec (top/left)	-67°27′40″
Dec (top/right)	-67°31′21″
Dec (bottom/right)	-76°19′27″
Dec (bottom/left)	-76°12′52″

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Clouds of the SMC?

Clouds of the SMC?

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Clouds of the SMC?

Clouds of the SMC?

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