|
Exposure |
SII 480 min (16 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
Ha
540 min (18 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
OIII 720 min (24 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
Lum 240 min ( 8 x 30 min, bin 1x1)
RGB 450 min ( 5 x 30 min each, bin 1x1)
SII, Ha & OIII are mapped
to RGB respectivly.
The lower image has 30% LRGB data added.
Click
here for an LRGB natural color
version.
Click
here for an Ha filtered b/w version. |
|
Software |
CCDSoft,
CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin
and Noel Carboni's actions.
Noel Carboni's
StarSpikes Pro was used to
restore and sharpen the normal spider defraction spikes.
PixFix32 (pre-beta) to
repair hot/cold pixels and column defects.
CCDStack to calibrate, register,
normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures & LRGB color
combine.
PhotoShop for
on-linear stretching
and LRGB color combine |
|
Comment |
North is to the
top.
Located at the center
of its parent emission nebula, IC 1805
(The Heart nebula),
is the star cluster Melotte 15. Stellar winds and radiation, from
the young hot massive stars in the cluster, form the nebula gasses
into this beautiful tree like sculpture. IC 1805 is about 7,500
light years away, toward the constellation Cassiopeia. It is
illuminated by Melotte 15, which is located about 50 light years
closer.
These false color images were acquired with Ha, SII and OIII filters
mapped to the RGB channels respectively. The colors of top image
more closely follow the Hubble Palette, with the color channels
pretty much stretched to equal levels. The presence of sulfur,
hydrogen and oxygen are clearly shown. Red indicates the
presence sulfur, green hydrogen and blue oxygen. With no color
manipulation, the image would be basically green, due to the
dominance of hydrogen.
The lower image was processed with 30% added LRGB data to produce
a different color motif.
|
