Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Gemini (Gem)  ·  Contains:  Sh2-274
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Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020, David Dearden
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Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020, David Dearden
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Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020

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Description

1500 LY

I saw I had not tried this target in 4 years and was looking for something that would work well in narrowband, so thought I’d try the Medusa Nebula. I was fighting my focuser trying to get the tension properly adjusted, so had a hard time getting good focus on the first subframes I took. Not fully satisfied with the early result, I decided to integrate some more and I’m glad I did. I took LRGB data primarily intending to use it for star colors and was interested to see that the nebula itself is pretty dim; the narrowband filters helped a lot, especially Hα although the nebula showed up in all 3 filters. Processing was also a struggle this time. I found I needed to do levels & curves on the nebula after adding an Hα luminance layer but before using a “lighten” combine to add in the LRGB stars. I processed both an SHO Hubble palette version and a HSO version; once again, I think the chemical differences in the nebula show up better in the Hubble version so that’s the one I prefer. It’s interesting that Wikipedia describes this as a planetary nebula. If that’s indeed correct, it’s an unusually structured one.

Date: 21-25 Feb 2020

Subject: SH2-274, Medusa Nebula

Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific Coma Corrector

Filters: ZWO 31 mm diameter unmounted 7 nm Hα, SII, OIII, L, R, G, B

Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD 2.000j)+PEC

Guiding: Orion Thin Off-axis Guider + ASI120MM-mini +PHD 2.6.7 (Win 10 ASCOM)

Camera: ASI1600MM-Cool, -20 °C, Gain 139 Offset 21

Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 3.1.0.452

Exposure: 55x300 Hα, 17x300 SII, 20x300 OIII, 60x120 L, 20x120 R, 20x120 G, 20x120 B

Stacking: Deep Sky Stacker 4.2.3 (64-bit) dark+flat+bias, κ-σ stacking with κ = 1.5.

Processing: StarTools 1.6.387: For Hα, SII, & OIII each, software binned 2x2, cropped, developed, HDR “reveal all”, deconvoluted, and untrack denoised (grain equalization). Combined L, R, G, & B in StarTools, adjusting for exposure times. 2x2 software binned, cropped, developed, HDR “reveal all,” color module with heavy saturation boost and that barely made the color show up. Untrack denoised (grain removal). In Photoshop, used Annie’s Astro Actions to do SHO Hubble combination, attempting to overlap the histograms for the 3 colors as much as possible. Did the same using the RGB action to do HSO. For both SHO and HSO, applied Hα as luminance and did some levels & curves adjustments. For the LRGB, used Astronomy Tools’ “increase star color” and “decrease star size,” then combined with the SHO and HSO using “lighten.” More levels and curves. AstroFrame.

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  • Final
    Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020, David Dearden
    Original
  • Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020, David Dearden
    B

B

Description: This is the HSO version, but I think I prefer the SHO.

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Sh2-274, Medusa Nebula, SHO & HSO + LRGB stars, Feb 2020, David Dearden