Witch's Broom Bi-color

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AndyG
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Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by AndyG »

I just finished processing some data I collected in August of the often-photographed celestial celebrity NGC6960, the Western Veil, or Witch's Broom. The result is a bi-color image with purple representing O-III and cyan for H-alpha.

The image acquisition details are here, and you can click on the image below for the full resolution version.

I hope you like it, thanks for checking it out.

Image
Andy
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NGC7000
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by NGC7000 »

I love the splendid array of blended gasses, Andy. Beautiful job. Twelve hours! Wow!

Tom
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BobSikes
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

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Awesome Andy,

Great project

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Bruce D
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by Bruce D »

Andy that's increadable!
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DonB
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by DonB »

I may be overstating it, but I've only seen photos like that from the Hubble. Amazing !! :shock: :shock:
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Mark G
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

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LOVE IT :!: One of my favorite objects to view, and you nailed it :!: TY for sharing. 8)
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bluemax
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by bluemax »

Andy,

Very nice work! Question: how did you manage to keep the star 52 from over exposing? I suspect it's something in processing...care to share your secrets? :lol: :lol:
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AndyG
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

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bluemax wrote:Question: how did you manage to keep the star 52 from over exposing? I suspect it's something in processing...care to share your secrets?
Thanks, Frank. Actually, I think it was simply the narrowband filters that prevented 52 Cygni from being more overexposed. Here are crops from Ha and OIII raw subs. The FWHM is ~9px for the Ha sub and ~7px for the OIII sub.

Ha (single sub, uncalibrated, stretched) Image
OIII (single sub, uncalibrated, stretched) Image

Now here's something interesting... Taking that same OIII sub and only doing a very mild stretch and zoom 2x:

Image

52 Cygni is a double star! I never knew that :idea: ... confirmed online that the A/B components of the double star system are separated by 6.1". Cool!

This gives me an idea for Paul's Sirius A/B challenge... maybe try a filter to cut down A's intensity?
Last edited by AndyG on Sun Sep 29, 2013 10:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bruce D
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by Bruce D »

thats a very cool image of a double star!
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Paul D
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Re: Witch's Broom Bi-color

Unread post by Paul D »

Glad someone reads my challenges LOL.. 52 Cygni A and B are respectively mags 8.5 and 4.2. Doing the calculations for 52 Cygni it recommended splitting it with a 4 - 6 mm EP in the 16inch.

What makes Sirius B (The Pup) so hard is the sheer magnitude of Sirius A which is a staggering -1.5 and Sirius B is 8.2 which in any scope is normally an easy find without Sirius A glare. Believe me when I say I have tried every trick in the book. I tried all the filters including stacking different color filters. I have tried taking a junk eyepiece and putting a black marker dot on the lens inside the barrel and aligning that dot over Sirius A. I have tried covering the barrel half way with black electrical tape and again blocking out Sirius A. The new tricks in Sky and Tel this month along with the pups placement give me hope this time around. I would have never thought of allowing dawn to be the filter to kill the glare of Sirius A. That is ingenious.

One piece of advice I will say is don't go out knowing where B is. Imagine-o-vision kicks in and you will see things that are not there. I also try to do this target with someone else observing with me simply to verify it. We have had past members who were very new to the hobby who clamed to have found it when most who were out on the same night knew it was not possible. Not to mention in the report listed the pup on the wrong side based on the scope they were using.

Just so I wont Hijack the thread, Great image of the Witch's Broom Andy. Always one of my first targets when we are at MSSF or Stellafane.
Paul...

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