Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6960  ·  The star 52 Cyg  ·  Veil Nebula
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NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO, Monty Giavelli
NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO
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NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO

Revision title: NGC 6960

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NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO, Monty Giavelli
NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO
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NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO

Revision title: NGC 6960

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Description

NGC 6960
Done with a HOO palette and a bit of Sii added to the Ha.
The image collection spanned 4 nights.
The moon was not a problem during this period but the humidity was in the 90's by 1:00 AM.
I discarded over 60 images that had either high FWHM, high Eccentricity, or low star count.
My total guiding error averaged 0.5 - 0.55 arcseconds throughout the collection phase, occasionally higher or lower.
The upper right of the image shows collimation problems, I have an OCAL but haven't used it yet. Collimating fast newtonians is a bit tricky. 

From 'Nasa Science' -
Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would have suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was from a supernova, or exploding star, and record the expanding debris cloud as the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant. This sharp telescopic view is centered on a western segment of the Veil Nebula cataloged as NGC 6960 but less formally known as the Witch's Broom Nebula. Blasted out in the cataclysmic explosion, the interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. Imaged with narrow band filters, the glowing filaments are like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue-green) gas. The complete supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans about 35 light-years. The bright star in the frame is 52 Cygni, visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova remnant.

52 Cygni is about 291 light years from earth, so it is much closer to us than NGC 6960 at 1400 light years.

PixInsight -
This is my basic processing sequence for a mono camera and narrowband + RGB filters.
WeightedBatchPreprocessor is a real timesaver and does a good job with most of the default setting.
The EZ scripts also work nicely with mainly default setting.

Blink - remove the obviously bad images.
SubframeSelector - discard image with high FWHM, high Eccentricity, or low star count. Choose a good reference image.
WeightedBatchPreprocessor - process and stack all the frames into masters.
EZDenoise - run this script on all the masters - Ha, Oiii, Sii, Red, Green, Blue
EZSoftStretch - run on all denoised masters to stretch to a non linear state
DynamicCrop - crop all masters together
AutomaticBackgroundExtraction - run on all masters to clean up the background
LinearFit - Red to Green and Blue
Starnet2 - use on all masters. Remove the stars from Ha, Oiii, Sii. Save the stars from Red, Green, Blue
PixelMath - combine the starless Ha, Oiii, Sii
      R/K: Ha * 0.8 + Sii * 0.2
      G: Oiii * 0.7
      B: Oiii * 1.1
      Name the new image HOO
ACDNR -  reduce noise in HOO
     Set  Lightness Amount to 0.3
     Set Chrominance Amount to 0.3
MultiscaleMediumTransform -  add a bit of sharpness but don't overdo it.
UnsharpMask
     Set Amount to  0.3
LocalHistogramEqualization - enhance local contrast and visibility of structures
      Use 8-bit
ColorSaturation - selectively bring up blue areas
CurvesTransformation 
     Try s-curves on 'R' and 'B' to bring out the reds and blues
PixelMath - combine the mono stars images into a single color image
     R/K: RedStars image
     G: GreenStars image * 0.9
     B: BlueStars image
     Name the new image StarsRGB
EZStarReduction - run twice on StarsRGB
ColorSaturation - increase star saturation as needed on StarsRGB
PixelMath - combine HOO and StarsRGB
Use other process as needed to personalize the final image.
I used the processes judicially, I tried not to over-process using any of the PI processes.
I then saved the final image as a .png file and used Lightroom to make some minor adjustments.

I hope this helps others who are just getting into narrowband processing using PixInsight !

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Revisions

  • NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO, Monty Giavelli
    Original
  • Final
    NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO, Monty Giavelli
    C

C

Title: NGC 6960

Description: A bit more star reduction.

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NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom Nebula in HOO, Monty Giavelli