First colour attempt at Lagoon Nebula

Post by **rcj** » Wed May 10, 2006 12:45 am

Hi all,
After a few weeks break, am back in business. Skies cleared pretty much the previous two nights. Decided to wait out for Lagoon nebula to rise high enough to image decently. Just when it cleared the trees at about 30 degrees elevation during the first night, I tried imaging and composing it...trying to find the extent of the nebulosity using the same setup for the previous Eta Carinae attempt. Lagoon was easier to take considering it had more guidestars of a certain bright enough magnitude, and the nebulosity was tight and compact. First night was mainly experimental and thought I may want to cover a H-alpha mosaic (smaller!) of this region. However, after sometime, decided to try a colour version including H-alpha information for this emissive object. Not enough time, so wait out further for perhaps another clear evening. The second night (last night) was clear again, and I decided to embark on a single frame composite of various components ranging from H-Alpha, Luminance, and R, G, B colour channel components. This resulted in the image attached for your reference. One of them shows the full frame view, while the other shows the actual resolution of the nebula from the CCD and cropped to highlight the numerous Bok globules present within central Lagoon (also rotated 90 degrees for more pleasing view).

This single frame project took a couple of hours, mainly because each component was again and stack of three subexposures, and duration ranging from 5-minute to 15-minute components, from the three-incher in the balcony.

Difficulties included deciding and processing in colour and getting rid of noise and other nitty gritties. And alignment! Not sure if a colour mosaic of this object will follow but I will probably hope to include another frame next to the nebula that includes mini-snake nebula next to it...i think it is called NGC6559, though I am not sure of the exact catalogue number. This part has bluish nebulosity components, so it should be interesting, rather than the usual reds from this complex...

Till then...

Jin Peng · Post by **Jin Peng** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:37 am

Nice remus, your skills are perfect!

Tachyon · Post by **Tachyon** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:08 am

Looks like you are not alone in pointing your scope at the same object!

klutz · Post by **klutz** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:20 pm

Actually... Was it supposed to be blue or red...?

Post by **rcj** » Wed May 10, 2006 3:28 pm

Tachyon · Post by **Tachyon** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:33 pm

Depends... if you are looking through a telescope - it's white/grey!

Jin Peng · Post by **Jin Peng** » Wed May 10, 2006 10:55 pm

but the eyepiece with OII filter on it, it's blue and white!

cataclysm · Post by **cataclysm** » Thu May 11, 2006 10:14 pm

great pictures Remus. Amazing that you can do it at your balcony. Is it north and east facing?

Post by **rcj** » Thu May 11, 2006 10:17 pm

heya!
when i took the image, it was in the rough south east direction, but heading towards almost 70 degrees elevation from the southeastern horizon by the end of the series of exposures.

Post by **Airconvent** » Thu May 11, 2006 11:52 pm

hi remus.
great pic! what scope did you use? I noticed blue fringing around the stars. does this mean you did not use the Takahashi this time round?