M78 And Barnard's Loop (Sh 2-276) (estabrook)

M78 And Barnard's Loop (Sh 2-276)

I've wanted to capture M78 for quite a while. My first attempt, late last year on an Alt-Az mount, was not worthy of publication. I got my first EQ mount a couple months later but did not get a chance to turn it to M78 until after the target moved beyond my field of view. Meanwhile, members of the Astrobin community were posting glorious--and inspiring--images of this M78 and its stunning neighbor, Barnard's Loop.

When Orion began ascending last month, I decided it was time for me to try to do justice to them both. I invested quite a bit of time into the project, but it did not always go smoothly. I lost a full night of broadband data (collected on a moonless night, no less) to my failure to shoot proper flats; I lost another night to stubborn walking noise after an ASI Air update covertly deactivated my dither settings. A few more nights of Optolong L-eNhance data just weren't good enough, and yielded unacceptably noisy data. I've probably stacked and processed various combinations of this data a dozen times.

Finally, after working on this project for well over a month, I captured three nights of high-quality dual-narrowband data (now with an IDAS NBZ filter) and a full night of good (Bortle 8) broadband data (with the Optolong L-Pro filter)--nearly 18 hours in all. I wish the final image had preserved more of the wispier reds within Barnard's Loop (I may revisit as my processing skills improve), but I'm pleased that the final image has is clean enough to give a sense of M78's dusty environs.

Original
C
F
Final
G

F

Title: Title: Astrophotography Moves Pretty Fast!

Description: In the few short weeks since I posted, two new tools have arrived for PixInsight, which have enabled me to show this image in a completely new light. Bill Blanshan introduced an easy new method of combining Ha with RGB, which helped reveal some of the wispy nebulosity the original missed. And Russ Croman released BlurXterminator, which crisped up the image and tamed my bloated stars.

Uploaded: ...

G

Description: Seeing new renditions of M78 and Barnard's Loop from fellow Astrobinners inspired me to revisit mine. I reprocessed it with the latest BlurX and GraXpert and a few techniques I've picked up over the past year or so. BlurX worked wonders on my Hyperstar stars. I managed to preserve more of the Ha gas in Bernard's loop and draw out a little more color in M78--better, I think!

Uploaded: ...

NOVAC
IDAS NBZ Dual Band Nebula Boost Filter
The OSC Club (One Shot Camera)
Virginia Astronomers and Astrophotographers
ZWO ASI183/QHY183
Light Polluted skies
Optolong L-Pro filter
HyperStar Lens Astrophotography

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	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

	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

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	6661594
PixInsight job	LRKW0U2Z73AIUCAC06A0I8HWDPF8GG5B
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h47m52s.72
RA (top/left)	05h47m49s.89
RA (top/right)	05h42m38s.49
RA (bottom/right)	05h47m55s.55
RA (bottom/left)	05h53m07s.45

Dec (center)	+00°39′38″.9
Dec (top/left)	+02°04′56″.3
Dec (top/right)	+00°06′38″.10
Dec (bottom/right)	-00°45′35″.10
Dec (bottom/left)	+01°12′39″.2

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):