Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Perseus (Per)  ·  Contains:  Barbell Nebula  ·  Cork Nebula  ·  Little Dumbbell Nebula  ·  M 76  ·  NGC 650
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M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus
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M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus
Powered byPixInsight

M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus

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Description

Mesa, Arizona

November 15 – 20, 2020

I imaged Messier 76, the Little Dumbbell Nebula, in the constellation Perseus from light polluted skies in Mesa Arizona. This planetary nebula was captured with two narrowband filters, Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) and Oxygen-III (OIII). I also took a series of exposures with Red, Green and Blue filters to capture the natural color of the stars. This is a false color image that combines Ha in the red channel, and O-III in the green and blue channels (HOO). The star color image was then blended with the HOO false color image to produce the final result. This image presented challenges in bringing out sufficient details in the core while not creating a result that had too much contrast. I experimented with masking techniques in PixInsight to protect the stars and the background while sharpening the nebula with combinations of the Histogram Equalization and HDRMultiscaleTransform tools.

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    M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
    Original
    M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
    B
  • Final
    M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
    D

B

Description: Reprocessed with new tools and workflow in PixInsight and Photoshop.

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D

Description: The background was too "splotchy" or mottled. I darkened it, perhaps too much, to remove the distraction.

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M76, The Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel