Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Puppis (Pup)
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Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB, Jacob Heppell
Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB
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Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB

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Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB, Jacob Heppell
Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB
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Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB

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Description

Gum 6, also known as Sharpless 2-302, represented in HaLRGB. I set my sight on this nebula in mid-December 2021 as my main summer nebula target. It presented a unique challenge as there is only H-alpha in the narrowband so had to be blended with RGB for color. Ordinarily this is fine as I could simply use Ha for luminosity and RGB for color but there is also some reflection nebulosity seen (VdB97), which is invisible to narrowband. So my luminosity layer had to be a composite of Ha/Lum. In addition, I enhanced the Red channel with Ha to really bring that color through the star field. So technically this is a (HaL)(HaR)GB composite.
The nebula itself is very faint and quite light on features and details aside from the obvious dark strip running through it. So I gathered about 55 hrs of Ha data but only used 30.5 hrs (best data of the lot) plus 5.75 hrs LRGB data, which went a long way to acquiring a final image of decent SNR from which I could reveal whatever details were present.

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Gum 6 (Sharpless 2-302) in HaLRGB, Jacob Heppell

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Southern Hemisphere Astro