RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela (John Dziuba)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Vela (Vel) · Contains: HD73218 · HD73259 · HD73269 · HD73270 · HD73285 · HD73460 · HD73524 · HD73525 · HD73526 · HD73528 · HD73550 · HD73567 · HD73588 · HD73606 · HD73632 · HD73657 · HD73676 · HD73695 · HD73696 · HD73698 · HD73699 · HD73721 · HD73808 · HD73811 · HD73868 · HD73882 · HD73901 · HD73930 · HD73965 · HD73985 · And 116 more.

Powered byPixInsight

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

Powered byPixInsight

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

This is a busy area in the Vela constellation located roughly 3,000 light years away from Earth. At the center of the image is RCW32 also known as GUM15. Adjacent to GUM15 is GUM14 on the top left and and GUM17 on the bottom right. The wispy blue and red nebulae in the top right of the image is part of the massive Vela supernova remnant complex.

This image was a challenging one to process. The star field is super dense which causes a lot of sky glow, which in turn washes out the image to some extent especially in the blue channel. In order to gain more control over the combined result, I ended up stretching each channel prior to combining which I rarely do. Also, there is actually very little difference between the Ha, red, and the luminance data. This made blending the luminance and the red channels quite challenging to pick up the fine details that each channel revealed without blowing them out.

Equally challenging was building a luminance image that provided enough contrast to bring out details without black clipping the very dark nebulas. This was achieved via many DBE iterations and many creative masks. I built a total of six luminance images before I was happy with the result!

My primary target was actually RCW32 at the dead center of the image which was being imaged at the same time by the larger RiDK scope. The FSQ is just piggybacked and along for the ride so this image is really a byproduct of the other yet to be published close-up image. As a result of this, in my opinion the framing could be a little better. However I am still quite happy with the result.

Thanks for checking it out.

CS

Original
Final
G

ASI 6200 MM Pro
Southern Hemisphere Astro
Fine Art Astrophotography
Takahashi Refractors
PixInsight Addicts

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9353097
PixInsight job	VWUD6R88SKY5BWJWVBYMFRJ7Q09ZSP1R
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	08h44m42s.92
RA (top/left)	08h36m07s.92
RA (top/right)	08h35m14s.91
RA (bottom/right)	08h53m57s.16
RA (bottom/left)	08h53m29s.71

Dec (center)	-41°24′00″.8
Dec (top/left)	-38°56′55″.2
Dec (top/right)	-43°46′33″.10
Dec (bottom/right)	-43°48′12″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	-38°58′35″.9

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

RCW32 / GUM15 Region - Cosmic Chaos in Vela

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

Delete this revision?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information