The Squid Nebula - SH2-129

[JimFox]

This is the Squid Nebula. It's one I have seen others doing from time to time, though it doesn't seem to be a super popular one. I recently saw it again, and said I have to try and capture this myself. The Squid is made up of that blue Oiii data. It's super faint. In fact with a 16 minute exposure I tried last night, none of the blue Oiii was seen at all in it, only the Red Ha signal. But I decided that since it was faint, I would just capture it in faith that the blue was just buried a bit deeper in this one, and perhaps I could teeze it out? Worst case scenerio was I didn't get any blue data but the Red Ha data was pretty interesting on it's own, so that would be good enough.

As it was, as I began to stretch the data, I did see the blue of the Squid pretty faintly. I teased and tugged that blue in both Pixinsight and Photoshop, and I got it to this point and thought it was good with the limited 5 hours of data I had on it. I am thinking that this is one that will just need more data. If it's clear this Friday I will go out and get another 5 hours on it.

So another work in progress that I hope to surpass soon.

Also I left the background a bit lighter then perhaps normal as I really liked all of those bits of Red Ha scattered throughout the background. I thought it was a nice touch.

27 - Lights at 600 secs with the Optolong L-Enhance Filter
30 - Flats
30 - Dark/Flats
10 - Darks

iOptron Gem28
ZWO ASI2600mc Pro
ZWO 120mm Mini - Guide Camera
Askar Fra500
Stacked in Pixinsight
BlurXterminator
Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks like a pretty good starting point. I will be interested in seeing what another 5 hours of data does.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Looks good to me, only with experience do you see the small imperfections that take much effort to fix, only to find another. It seems with DSO images, more data is one such solution.

 

[JimFox]

Looks like a pretty good starting point. I will be interested in seeing what another 5 hours of data does.

Thanks Alan! Hopefully more data will fill in both the blue and red. Some of the other images I have seen of this, the red becomes almost solid with the extra data. So I will see. Though some of those improvements may only be possible from using a mono camera with dedicated filters instead of the dual-band filter I was using.

 

[JimFox]

Looks good to me, only with experience do you see the small imperfections that take much effort to fix, only to find another. It seems with DSO images, more data is one such solution.

I appreciate that Ben.

Yep, with Astro, most of the signals are weak, so the longer you can capture the more color that can be absorbed.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Jim,

That's a wonderful first result, especially fore only 5 hours of data. I like what you have here. but I am most excited to see an image from you that is processed in a way to show all the other faint details instead of crushing the blacks down so hard. That makes for a more interesting (and frankly more accurate) image when you are showing some of these really faint main targets in particular. Anyway great job on this one!

 

[JimFox]

Thanks so much Mike, I appreciate those comments. Though I am thinking we have 2 totally idea's of what crushing the blacks mean. I stopped way short of on the amount of darkening I do to the background. I would say I only did 20% of my normal adjustment because I didn't want to crush the blacks and I wanted to let the background Ha show through like it does in my image. I purposely made sure all of that background Ha was visibile and showing throughout the whole image. I guess my idea of faint details is not the same as yours? Because I was really happy with the amount of faint details I did have showing through. Maybe I just don't know any better, and one day will look back and laugh at myself.

 

[Comet Hunter]

tough image to capture, nicely done

 

[JimFox]

tough image to capture, nicely done

I appreciate that Ed. I wasn't sure while capturing it if the squid would even show up. I am glad it did.