Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  HD215605  ·  HD215806  ·  HD215835  ·  LBN 511  ·  NGC 7380  ·  Sh2-142
Wizard Nebula, Paul Macklin
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Wizard Nebula

Wizard Nebula, Paul Macklin
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Wizard Nebula

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Description

This was a tricky one! At 1485mm f/7, I needed 10 min subs to see much of anything in individual frames. (dual narrowband) 

This work combines 3 sessions totaling over 18 hours of 10 min guided subs in low-moon, backyard conditions. I processed Ha and [OIII] separately, and used a modified HOO2 palette that reduced the Ha background and boosted [OIII] to find this balance. In this balance, the shock waves and details carved out by radiation and stellar winds around the chain of bright new stars near the Wizard's "chin" stand out. 

In postprocessing, I used some minimal Topaz denoising, classic unsharp mask, and then some mild wavelet sharpening in Registax to bring out more of the dust and gas cloud details. I used some very mild star reduction in AstroPixelProcesser to reduce star size and intensity by 15%, but I like to take a light touch on that. To me, it's interesting to see how faint this beautiful DSO is relative to the stars. 

Hope you enjoy!

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Wizard Nebula, Paul Macklin