NGC 2371 is a cool looking planetary nebula in Gemini with distinctive twin winged lobes off the sides.
It kind of reminds me of the head-on view of a bird flying towards Earth
.
This data was obtained back in 2021 using my EdgeHD 9.25" with an ASI1600MC camera and two filters, a duoNB and an L.
The latest processing tools - notably Russ Croman's NoiseXterminator, BlurXterminator and StarXterminator plus the excellent
freeware GraXpert - made processing not only simpler and faster than when I processed this in 2021, but with much better
detail in the result. Instead of spending most of a day fiddling with processing, this took less than an hour.
I used GraXpert on the L and duoNB masters, then NoiseXT and BlurXT. GeneralizedHyperbolicStretch, my new favorite
tool for going non-linear, did just that. I used PixelMath to combine the two masters, 50/50.
From there I used HDRmt and Curves to bring out the detail and increase color saturation.
I could probably eek a few more pixels of detail out of this but I've dragged my feet on processing for a long time and
with the new tools, I'm eager to turn some data into pictures. With Voyager Advanced running my observatory with three
scopes every clear night, I've accumulated quite a pile of bits to process!
Cheers,
Rowland
Comments