The largest Bat in the Universe! ;-)

[H-Alpha]

Hi all,

I hope this finds you well.

Being disappointed by the Lunt internal DS (that will never work properly I think) and the very bad way Lunt is treating clients with problems (don't even answer e-mails..., or answer with one line meaning nothing...), but also because there were not many sun opportunities recently, I opted for some night deep sky imaging. I just completed Orion these days, just before he says goodbye (photographically) to us for this year.

In the meanwhile I improved significantly my skills in PixInsight! Fianlly, I start enjoying it... Therefore, I decided to process some data from last summer taken with my old C8.

And here I share with you my first effort with a photo 100% processed with PixInsight.

2022-7-7, 8 & 2022-8-7, 8, NGC 6995 Bat Nebula, HaOIII 24h 13 min, RGB 30 min, C8, Reducer 0.63x, ASI1600 framed by H- Alpha, on Flickr

The Bat Nebula NGC 6995 was always attracting my attention and imagination, since I first saw photos of it. Actually, it is the lower part of the East Veil Nebula 6992, but if we subtract it in a frame and rotate properly, it really looks like a bat!

I hope you like it. :-)

Best wishes,
Alexandros

PS: I hope I will soon return to our beloved Sun, since I will use the C14 for some galaxies for night photography.

[Montana]

Wow!! that is truly remarkable! I am a big bat fan and I didn't realise there was one in the sky too

What I would like to see is the original image you processed before Pixinsight to see the difference

Alexandra

[H-Alpha]

Hi Alexandra,

Thanks and I am glad you liked the bat.

Wow!! that is truly remarkable! I am a big bat fan and I didn't realise there was one in the sky too

What I would like to see is the original image you processed before Pixinsight to see the difference

Alexandra

I tried to think what I could upload to give you an idea of the original image, but I realize that this is impossible, because the actual originals are 5 mono captures and the process is quiet complex... I used a mono camera and took about 25 hours of data with five different filters. These were Ha (that gives the red in the final image), OIII that gives the green and blue, and R, G, B, (just 40 min) that give the colours of the stars. All these captures are greyscale unstreched images that are stacked and calibrated with flats, darks, darkflats and bias images to result in five 'original' images.

The very 'simplified' way of processing the five results of the stacking per filter is the following. With Ha and OIII we compose the colour image of the Nebula (and stars). Then we remove the stars and we process the nebula (remove background, correct the colour etc.). We also remove and keep only the stars from the colour image composed by the RGB. We adjust the colour of the stars to become real (with SpectrophotometricalColourCalibration) based on databases..., and add the stars back to the only-nebula image. Finally, we reduce the size of the stars if necessary and remove the background noise.

I described just a small part of the whole process that include masking and other processes, just to give you an idea of the complexity... All this can be done also in Photoshop (at least in theory), but in PixInsight there are specialized processes that make it easier (only when you have succeeded to understand them...).

It will be much easier to show you an original when I use a OSC (colour) camera. These days I captured the Orion nebula with the ASI2600MC (colour) camera, so all the process will start from a colour image that you can compare with the final result. I will likely upload my result, so please remind me there to upload the original as well if you wish.

Even in that case, because the Orion nebula is quite special in having a huge degree of luminosity between the core (Trapezium) and the borders of the Nebula, I will use two or three 'originals' stacked separately. These are captures of 10', 60', 180' that capture correctly different portion of the nebula. Nevertheless, even with one of these originals you can have a good idea.

Hope this gives you an idea of the complexity and the effort, which PixInsight makes possible and 'easier'.

Best wishes,
Alexandros

[rsfoto]

Hi Alexandros,

First time I see the Bat Nebula.

For my taste you could make the background a bit less darker and for sure you will get more detail in the midtones.

Many of us tend to make the background black, but is the Universe really black RGB 0,0,0? I do not think so. There are sooooooo many distant stars sending light towards us.

When I make DSO images I tend to leave my background at around RGB 20,20,20 maximum 25,25,25.

[KMH]

Alexandros,

That's a beautiful image! I'm glad you're getting happier with PixInsight. My wife is as well, and is eager to reprocess some of our DSO images.

But, I think the Flying Bat nebula Sh2-129 in Cepheus is bigger. Big enough to eat a squid (OU4)!

Kevin