20220120 - Cloudy Nights = Education time 🤩 - IC405 - The Flaming Star Nebula - Stirring up the flames

What’s in the picture(s) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_405
Quote: “IC 405 (also known as the Flaming Star Nebula, SH 2-229, or Caldwell 31) is an emission and reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga north of the celestial equator, surrounding the bluish star AE Aurigae. It shines at magnitude +6.0. Its celestial coordinates are RA 05h 16.2m dec +34° 28′.”

What was the experience
Clouds, full Moon, fog …. What is an astrophotographer to do on such nights? 
Be creative, learn, re-process, plan ahead.

So, I’ve done a radical re-processing of data from the Flaming Star Nebula using PixInsight. This time as an HOO-palette with a twist, splitting the L-Enhance image in Ha(R) and Oiii(G) component, boosting the Oiii component to match the Ha, applying the fornaxx-formula, using Ha as Luminance. Applying ACDNR in a better way, which has made the image less noisy. Local Histogram, DarkStructure enhancements, etc ... I’ve been very soft on the curves transformation, very sensitive on the blackpoint as to not destroy the background.


All this, to come to an image that is so fundamentally different in look and approach from my first processing that I’m just amazed at the quality of information that was contained in the original data. Happy that the fine nebulosity in the background is better visible, and I enhanced the nice refection of AE Aurigae. 

But … here is the question that I’m struggling with: How should stars look in a HOO-palette? As this is an image representing “unnatural” colours, is it ok that the stars should look “unnatural” as well (off-hue, like they do). Or should they be shown in “natural” RGB colours … which would look unnatural in an HOO-image 🤔 … But then, what is natural 😳

How it was done
Scope: TS-94 APO (FL 414mm)
Mount: EQ6-R Pro
Camera: ASI2600MC Pro
Filter: L-Enhance
Photons: 300s 30x
Darks/Flats/Bias
Processing: PixInsight (Mac)

What have I learned from this
Processing is a matter of delicate fine-tuning. Minute tweaks of the curves. Big things come from small beginnings …
I’ve uploaded the starLess version as well, as it shows the background nebulosity more clearly, but you do notice the scars from the “unnatural” stars …🙄

Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭


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