This is my late-2024 take on the Horsehead and Flame Nebulas in a fairly wide view from my 530mm f/5 refractor. This view, taken over ten different nights in November & December 2024, is a pretty wide shot, with 36 hours of data.
It's a single-panel image, all unguided exposures
Per-filter totals for this image:
- Sii : 11.00 hours (66 subs)
- Ha : 8.83 hours (53 subs)
- Oiii : 5.83 hours (35 subs)
- Red : 3.67 hours (44 subs)
- Green : 3.42 hours (41 subs)
- Blue : 3.33 hours (40 subs)
- total : 36.08 hours (279 subs)
All processing was done in PixInsight, using several plugins and scripts. You can see these details are copied from the
writeup on my blogRGB filtersThe processing included (see the processing icons [here](
https://github.com/jamiesmith/pixinsight-icons)):
- RGB combination via ChannelCombination
- Auto Linear Fit
- GradientCorrection
- SPCC, set up for my astrodon RGB filters and PhotonFlux
- BlurX Full
- NoiseX
- StarX
- Stretched the stars via SetiAstro's "Star Stretch" ()
- GHS and a bit of curves to stretch the starless
Narrowband FiltersI performed these steps on the individual Ha, Oiii, and Sii master images:
- BlurX
- GradientCorrection
- NoiseX
- StarX (I didn't use the stars from these)
- GHS and a bit of curves to stretch each starless image
Combination- At this point I had 5 stretched (AKA "non-linear") images to combine:
- RGB Starless
- RGB Stars
- Sii Starless
- Ha Starless
- Oiii Starless
Using the "CombineRGBAndNarrowband" script, I added HOO to the RGB starless image,
then folded the Sii into that combined image as red via the ImageBlend script.
Finally, I used a PixelMath script to sprinkle the RGB stars back in.
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