IC1805 - Melotte 15 'all in the heart' (Tom Gray)

IC1805 - Melotte 15 'all in the heart'

I've recently enjoyed wide field imaging with my CCD camera attached to Pentax SLR lenses. Now I feel it is time to get back to higher resolution imaging, and to make use of my narrow band filters.

This image gets to the 'heart of the heart' nebula IC1805, captured at ~f4 with my Meade LX5 8" SCT and f3.3 focal reducer. It comprises 185m Ha data (60% best frames from my stack), aligned and stacked in ASTAP and processed in Startools using a DDP (non-linear) stretch.

Given fairly poor transparency with a high haze (6/10) and mediocre seeing (3/5), along with a very bright 15 day moon, I was surprised at the amount of detail I managed to capture using my Baader 7nm Ha filter.

This is definitely work in progress, although not easy to find, using a traditional push to and star hopping approach (I'm hoping to get my trusty Argo Navis DSC back from repair soon). When the skies are darker I will try adding some OIII data and perhaps SII (for the first time).

IC1805 lies 7500 light years away from earth, and the brightest portion of my image is known as Melotte 15, energised by the young bright stars that lie within this loose cluster. It is a fascinating area of molecular gas, dust and debris with endless possibilities for astro photographers.

Original
B
C
D
Final
E

B

Description: A slightly more stretched and brighter version comprising 210m data, and rotated 180 degrees

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: A more 'contrasty' version made by blending the original and previous revision using the 'layers' module in Startools.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: I like this orientation, which is after all the right way up (and I like the symmetry with four images). I used a bit of flux to enhance the detail (processing trickery I believe).

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: In this revision I drizzled all the data (245m) by 1.5x with a pixel resolution of 0.7. I'm not sure there is really any more detail, but it did smooth the background walking noise. No flux applied.

Uploaded: ...

Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Only Monochromatic (Black and White!!!!! NO color, please!)
Narrowband imaging
Low-Cost Astrophotography
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5109285
PixInsight job	EE9GNAHFB0LHE1OVYEFSU3D4LJXBBA3Y
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h34m15s.374
RA (top/left)	02h36m59s.132
RA (top/right)	02h31m40s.520
RA (bottom/right)	02h31m33s.993
RA (bottom/left)	02h36m48s.277

Dec (center)	+61°22′09″.24
Dec (top/left)	+61°35′35″.40
Dec (top/right)	+61°37′00″.34
Dec (bottom/right)	+61°08′27″.18
Dec (bottom/left)	+61°07′06″.44

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