Heart and Soul Mosaic (Alex Ranous)

Heart and Soul Mosaic

The Heart and Soul nebulas are among my favorite targets. I had imaged both individually last year, but I’ve always wanted to pair them both together, but it requires a huge 6 degree field of view, needing a 2x3 mosaic to fit them both in. This year I decided to tackle the project after success with a 2x2 mosaic of the Veil.

I used PI's PhotometricMosaic script, which handled joining them all up without any major issues beside pilot error. The project soaked up more than 2 weeks of imaging nights. I waited until they were higher, so I did manage to image several other targets earlier in the evening. A full frame camera would have cut my mosaic frames in half, so that’s definitely on my Christmas list.

I used my current narrowband workflow. After assembling the individual Ha, OIII and SII masters from the mosaic panels, I created an SHO image while still linear and used StarXTerminator to remove the stars, which I stretched separately to my preferred star size. I like to keep the stars on the small side, especially in these dense star fields. I tossed the starless linear SHO image, and separately stretched the Ha, OIII and SII masters. This lets me tweak the intensity and contrast of each filter so that the color balance is pretty close when I combine to a SHO image. Using curves, I do the final adjustment to the color balance and intensity to get the starless image just where I want it, and the stars are added back as the final step.

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Ok, finally got a couple clear nights which allowed me to grab some OIII and SII for the two panels covering the heart. The weather reports indicate it might be awhile before I can get to the other panels.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Finally got enough subs for all three filters to finish the mosaic.

Uploaded: ...

Sharpless2 Objects
QHY268M/ZWO2600M Images
SF Bay Area Imagers
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Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

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Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6498550
PixInsight job	MHN28ANBNOF9DQRMJ9BEPA08PXUIEC40
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	02h45m01s.26
RA (top/left)	03h10m07s.42
RA (top/right)	02h24m44s.78
RA (bottom/right)	02h20m55s.40
RA (bottom/left)	03h02m57s.40

Dec (center)	+61°03′49″.7
Dec (top/left)	+61°34′06″.10
Dec (top/right)	+62°58′30″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+60°16′53″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+58°59′28″.9

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