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#EveryNewMoon – January – Barnard’s Loop

Posted by AstroTanja on 26 Jan 2016 / 7 Comments

As I enter my 4th year of being an astrophotographer, I can finally tick this target off my list. I’ve imaged Barnard’s before but wasn’t satisfied with the result.

And so, it became the 1st target of #EveryNewMoon, an imaging project Cory (@theastroshake) and I started for 2016.

I’ll write more about the project in the next few weeks.

For now:
RGB – Canon 60Da
52 x 180 seconds
30 Darks
100 Bias
Integration time: 156 Min. 2h 36m

HA: 12 x 600 Seconds.
No darks or bias
Integration time: 120 min. 2h

Calibrated and Integrated in PixInsight
Total Integration time: 4h 36m

It was very difficult to work with such a rich star field. Shooting at 24mm meant millions of little pin-point stars. 2 Iterations of star reduction, and I’m scared that now the sky appears noisy. But in fact, it’s just the ridiculous amount of stars in the image!

Barnards loop

Equipment:
Celestron Advance VX
Imaging Cameras:
Canon 60Da
Shot at 24mm, ISO800
QSI 683
Imaging Lens:
Canon 24-70 Lii F/2.8

Workflow:

RGB OSC Image off the Canon 60Da – PixInsight:

Dynamic Crop

DBE

Colour calibration

SCNR

Background neutralisation

Ha Image from the QSI CCD – PixInsight:

Dynamic Crop

DBE

Then proceeded with the following functions;

Red Channel Extracted

Pixel Math to combine HA and R

Pixel math to combine new Ha and R channel to the RGB with a boost factor

Background neutralisation

MMT to sharpen and reduce noise

MT

Colour saturation.

Sharpening.

Processing in PhotoShop:

Add vibrance, saturation, brightness and contrast.

Gradient edit for top left star colour.

Star reduction – failed – too many small stars – Started to look too granular

Processing in PI – MT final – Star reduction

7 Comments for #EveryNewMoon – January – Barnard’s Loop


Tom Wright
9 yearss ago


Great image 🙂 Yes there sure are a lot of of stars in the photo but the clarity of Barnard’s Loop is super 🙂

Tom

(Reply)

Graeme Quinn
9 yearss ago


Amazing image, beautifully framed. It would be great to see a larger, higher resolution version. The surprising feature for me is not Barnard’s Loop but the Angel Fish nebula on the right. It’s huge and captured so clearly. Which 24mm lens did you use and which Ha filter?

(Reply)

    AstroTanja
    9 yearss ago


    Thanks! For a larger version check out https://www.flickr.com/photos/astro-tanja/24241092139/in/dateposted-public/ – I do have slightly wider than this from my 60Da’s data, but the QSI CCD sensor is smaller so I had to crop to what you will see on Flickr. The lens was the 24-70mm F/2.8 LII from Canon, and a 5nm Ha on my QSI 683

    (Reply)

#EveryNewMoon – February – City trails ‹ AstroTanja
9 yearss ago


[…] Check out what I imaged for the January 2016 #EveryNewMoon […]

(Reply)

LMC #EveryNewMoon 1 ‹ AstroTanja
9 yearss ago


[…] our #EveryNewMoon 2016 adventure in Sutherland, South Africa. The primary target for the trip was Barnard’s Loop, and this was a bonus as all the imaging conditions turned out […]

(Reply)

Alf Petrig
6 yearss ago


Fabulous high resolution image well done Tinja
I am particularly interested in the un-cropped image particularly if it extends towards the upper right boring brown region of around celestial coordinates 6h+20 which may feature the space between the Crab Nebula M1 and gamma Gemini near the ecliptic.
Hope to hear from you
Cheers Alf

(Reply)

Alf Petrig
6 yearss ago


Hi Tinja
I have found the larger image on flicker and the expected brown region is there.
Fabulous work can I get an image for my astrophysics project?
Cheers Alf

(Reply)



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All images Copyright 2016 Tanja Schmitz