My most ambitious project to date!

NGC 7380, Also known as the Wizard Nebula, the Flying Horse Nebula and Sh2-142, is a region of gas, dust and young stars. Located 7200 light years way in the constellation Cepheus, the Wizard Nebula is very hard to see visually, but is a favorite imaging target. Most people have no trouble making the Wizard - wearing a pointed hat, a well defined nose and a bright blue star for his eye. He also appears to be wearing a cloak and posing with his hands and fingers outstretched.

This was a challenge object for me. This is my first full narrowband image and used many image processing steps that were new to me. I also collected a lot of data for this one (at least a lot for me). I collected 37x5-minute exposures over 4 nights of Ha, O3, and S2 filter data - for a total of almost 10 hours of integration. In addition to this, I collected 30x90 second of data for R,G,B, and another round of 15x30 seconds R,G,B for a grand total just short of 12 hours.

The idea here was to 1) play with using both narrowband and traditional RGB data mixed in the same image, and the final 30 seconds RGB data set was so I could potentially use RGB stars in a false color narrowband image in the Hubble SHO color palette.

I ended up creating a SHO image by using the SHO_AIP2 Script in Pixinsight which allows a false color image to be created from a blend of Ha,O3,S2,R,G,& B data. Since Narrowband images sometimes create stars that look a little funky, I wanted to use real RGB star data in the final image. Later in the process I also created RGB color images of the object. I then used Starnet - a neural network tool that removes stars from images to create an image of just the nebula. I used the same tool to extract just the stars from the RGB images. I then combined the two to create this image I am sharing here today.

On one hand, I am really happy with this image in that it is my very first Narrowband image. On the other hand this image still has star artifacts that I do not like and so I have an on-going challenge to improve my processing techniques to create better star images.

Thanks for looking!

Here are the details for this image

37 x 300 seconds Ha bin 1x1 @-15C

37 x 300 seconds OIII bin 1x1 @-15C

37 x 300 seconds SII bin 1x1 @-15C

30x90 seconds R 1x1 @-15C

30x90 seconds G 1x1 @-15C

30x90 seconds B 1x1 @-15C

30x30 seconds R 1x1 @-15C

30x30 seconds G 1x1 @-15C

30x30 seconds B 1x1 @-15C

50 x 2 seconds Bias exposures

25x 300 seconds Dark exposures

50 Ha Flats

50 Oiii Flats

50 Sii Flats

50 R Flats

50 G Flats

50 B Flats

Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO refractor

Guide Scope: Televue 76mm Doublet

Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO filter set

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

Mount: Ioptron CEM60

Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, along with Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, frequent processor's regret, significant frustration and the occasional swear word...…..