Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Perseus (Per)  ·  Contains:  Barbell Nebula  ·  Cork Nebula  ·  Little Dumbbell  ·  Little Dumbbell Nebula  ·  M 76  ·  NGC 650  ·  NGC 651  ·  PK130-10.1
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Messier 76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula - ONTC 8" Newtonian - 28 Hours - ASI1600MM - Astrodon SHO filters - CEM60 - Voyager, Rowland Archer
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Messier 76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula - ONTC 8" Newtonian - 28 Hours - ASI1600MM - Astrodon SHO filters - CEM60 - Voyager

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Messier 76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula - ONTC 8" Newtonian - 28 Hours - ASI1600MM - Astrodon SHO filters - CEM60 - Voyager, Rowland Archer
Powered byPixInsight

Messier 76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula - ONTC 8" Newtonian - 28 Hours - ASI1600MM - Astrodon SHO filters - CEM60 - Voyager

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Description

I acquired this data back in 2020-2022 and my acquisition was so unbalanced I didn't attempt to process it.  
2 hours of Ha, 3 of SII and 23 hours of OIII!  But since it's brightest in OIII, I decided to go ahead and process it rather 
than let it just sit around taking up disk space.

The new AI-based tools made a huge difference in ease and speed of processing.  

I use SiriL and Gess to calibrate right after acquisition.
PI's FastIntegration took my calibrated frames and made masters in about an hour.
The new GraXpert with AI easily knocked out the complex gradients.
I followed with Russ Croman's NoiseXT and BlurXT, then used the ColourMapper script to combine S, H and O frames with a "natural" blend.
GeneralizedHistogramStretch to get to nonlinear, followed by LocalHistogramEqualizaton and HDRMT. 
I made an object mask by extracting the L layer, stetching it heavily with HistogramTransformation and then using Croman's StarXT to eliminate the stars,
followed by a touch-up with HT to blackout the background.
With that mask in place, I used Curves and UnSharpMask for the final touches.

Thanks for visiting, comments and critique always welcome

Rowland

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Messier 76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula - ONTC 8" Newtonian - 28 Hours - ASI1600MM - Astrodon SHO filters - CEM60 - Voyager, Rowland Archer

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