My first take on a widefield image of the Bubble Nebula with M52. Also visible to the top right is planetary nebula PK112-00.1, and visible to the west and south of the bubble is a dark nebula. This image really has it all, which is the main attraction of imaging in this region!
Another cool facet of this image is that M52 lies about 4600 l.y. away from us whereas the Bubble nebula is about 11,000 l.y. away - which shows just how enormous the nebula and surrounding gas cloud are!
Finally, the juxtaposition gives one the feeling of seeing through time - the Bubble and M52 are separated by nearly 7000 light years and you can see the little cluster hanging out in front while fire rages in the background (~7000 l.y. Away 🙂)
This image was captured over 2 nights under average seeing from my remote observatory. Processed entirely in PixInsight as follows:
- WBPP all three filters and generate separate R, G and B
- CFA DrizzleIntegration for all 9 channels, one at a time
- Combine UV/IR R, G and B and SPCC before stretch
- Combine B and G from both Sii+Oiii (Askar D2) and L-eXtreme filter using ImageINtegration (4 files) to generate Oiii channel. Ha came from R channel of L-eXtreme and Sii came from R channel of Askar D2 filter
- ChannelCombination into HSO, DBE, BlurXT and GHS stretch
- Remove stars from HSO, use Bill Blanshan's HSONormalization, further process NB image to tastem and finally RGBStarsToNB script to add RGB stars to HSO
Update #1: Added an HOO version with better color balance (IMO)
Clear skies!
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