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NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
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NGC 7380 in OSC. Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143

Revision title: Corner stars fixed

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NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
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NGC 7380 in OSC. Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143

Revision title: Corner stars fixed

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Description

Revision 12/15/2022:
Another revision in the continuing work I will be doing this winter, under cloudy skies.  This one has always bugged me.  I tried this one before collecting more data and working it, with the final output being the last (old) versions.  I have simplified my processing and decided to give this a go.  A number of things I did not like about the last one.  While there was a decent amount of data for this object, something never worked for me in my processing.  In the end, I kind of ended up blowing out the signal in search of developing SN in the image and fell into too dark a floor.  Yes, one can see some of the dark molecular clouds, but it all is black.  And the faint HII signal is not that believable since they sit like faint islands isolated by the blackness.  So in this one, I attempted to bring the lower levels come up a lot.  At the same time, I let the brighter nebulosity within 7380 itself be itself, which is bright.  I also tried to improve the stars and in fact I believe that I have actually retained many more of the stars, while making them less obtrusive.  I am hoping that this allows the faint molecular cloud in the upper right quadrant show better, and also the very faint IFN-like signal in the left side of the field.  Also, one can now better see what I believe to be very faint reflection signal scattered about, near the main nebulosity.  Basically, I hope this is a more realistic presentation than the older posting which kind of bowls one over like getting hit by a red brick!

Old Description: 
NGC 7380 is one of the more popular targets that I see on AstroBin.  Yet it seems to get little respect.  I did not go back and peruse all 43 pages of this subject, but when paging back (not sure if these pages are chronological), there are no images in the first 7 pages selected as Image of the Day, and very few otherwise notable selections.  In some sense, this object kind of strikes me that way.  It has a unique shape that appropriately garnered the nickname The Wizard, but not that many exciting astronomical features, especially when viewed through the dense field of stars.  Most process this with very reduced starfield.  The starfield makes it a challenge to process.  But there are interesting towers of molecular cloud and even a rather striking hard to understand reflection (?) nebula.  NGC 7380 is roughly 8500 light years distant and its designation was originally noted for an open cluster associated with it.  LBN 511 and 506 are designations for the Wizard itself.

So, when I said that I had no more data to process with the submission of my last image, I guess I lied.  Truth was, this is data I collected at the beginning of September and fully expected that I was not going to process it.  Reason being is that the data included some screw ups, including wrong sub lengths and a cooler that was not turned on, then corrected, etc!  Just one of those bad two nights that happen some times.  Bottom line, the complexity for integrating all these was more work than I really wanted to put into a target I had already done.  Also, to be honest, this subject never really thrilled me.  It is deeply buried visually within a very dense starfield that makes this a challenge.  But then it started raining and has never really stopped, so what else is there to do?!  So I considered this a challenge and embarked on a rather slow workup of this.  Picking it up and putting it down several times.

I used a total of 289 subs for the processing.  Most were at 60 sec.  About half of these were at ambient temperature (whatever that was), the rest at -10C.  Extended Full Well readout mode: Gain 0: Offset 8.  Not sure why I chose these camera settings at the time, but I probably did not want to saturate and bloat the stars, thus increasing interference with the nebula details.  That is also why I backed off from 240 second subs.  I did use all (reasonably good subs) for the RGB "channel" of this image.  But I processed the detail in a false luminance, created from only the best of the 60 sec subs.  I believe that this yielded a better fine detail within the image.  As you will see from the two revisions I am providing, there were different philosophies that I used in the recombination of RGB with Luminance.  I present the highest contrast image (with lowest blackpoint) as the original (and final) image.  But even this image has significant signal, even in the darkest reaches.  The least contrasty image shows a bit better the dark molecular cloud that stretches across the top right.  

Speaking of philosophy, I try to stay away from total star replacement as a processing method.  I have tried it in the past, ironically on this same subject!  But did use it here.  To be sure, I did star reduction (the Bloch method) to assist in processing early on and through the first stretching.  I believe that this helps preserve more of the fine detail later on.  But I decided that I wanted more control over the stars and also wanted to eliminate many of the fainter stars.  (Normally I strive to keep the stars, but reduce their size and brightness.)  I am reasonably happy with the stars here, but they are by no means perfect.  But they seem to hold up through a reasonable image scale. 

Two "revisions" added as well.  One, lowest contrast, to highlight the dark nebula at the top right of the image.  The second is sort of in between.  Somewhat redder background, and maybe more pleasing to view.  You decide.

I will probably delete my first try on this image, since I was very much not happy with it back when I did it.  And now I can safely say that this will be my last image for quite some time, unless a miracle happens and the skies clear.

Comments

Revisions

  • NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    Original
  • NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    B
  • NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    C
  • NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    D
  • NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    E
  • Final
    NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle
    F

B

Description: This is a lowest contrast image, adjusted at the time I did the LRGB recombination function.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Less somewhat higher blackpoint, and slightly redder background.

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Starless Version of Revision

Uploaded: ...

E

Title: Revised NGC 7380 in OSC. Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143

Description: See updated Description for details

Uploaded: ...

F

Title: Corner stars fixed

Uploaded: ...

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NGC 7380 in OSC.  Includes Sh2-142 and Sh2-143, Alan Brunelle