There are a lot of objects in this image, and it was a really interesting one to process. I decided to go with the pseudo-SHO coloring here, following the process by Simon Todd (his
weblink is broken now, but he wrote it up as an article in Issue #82 of
Amateur Astrophotography magazine). In color-balancing with Curves Transformation, I found that the three main Oiii regions (Sh2-157, Sh2-158, and Sh2-162) wanted ideally to have different settings, so it was a compromise to balance them all the best I could manage.
I've uploaded a revision (C) with a little more weighting toward green than revision (A) - I haven't decided which one I like better yet, so if anyone has a strong preference, let me know. Revision (D) is the natural color version. In all three of these, I de-emphasized the stars quite a lot because I found them distracting. Revisions (E,F,G) are starless versions of the first three. I usually do not like starless images too much, but, for this one, I almost prefer those since there is so much interesting content....
I actually have a mono camera now (QHY533M) with a complete filter set that I need to get running after a little more testing and evaluation. I was really amazed at how clear the Bubble Nebula is even with an OSC, so it will be a good target for mono imaging if I get a chance this fall.
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