LBN505 from Lynds' catalogue of bright nebula

[RobertM]

Something a little different from Lynds catalogue of Bright Nebula. This is a rarely imaged region that doesn't look too conspicuous in star maps.

Taken over the nights of 9/10/11/12th September 2018 with the following equipment:



Link to the original https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1923/43172835800_61d6d5ff57_o.jpg

Mount: NEQ6, Rowan belt mod
Telescope: RH200 (f/3 600mm FL astrograph)
Camera: ASI 183mm PRO binned 2x2 (1.64 arcsec/pixel)
Filters: Astrodon 31mm RGB

Observing conditions: Excellent - limiting magnitude > 5.5

Image acquired in SGPro using 2m subs with gain 111, 80 Red, 89 Green and 79 Blue subs in total (160/178/158 minutes equivalent exposure time for each channel).

All stacking, calibration and Image processed in Pixinsight.

[Carole]

Definitely rarely imaged, could hardly find any other images of it on Astrobin (1) and on the web only (1).

Nice to see something unusual, only RGB and no Lum?

Nice round and colourful stars. 

I like it.

Carole

[MarkS]

Wow - very nice!

It's really good to see such an unusual object being imaged.  It's an excellent choice, with so much going on - lots of colour!

The image has the appearance of being covered by a blue haze - do you think that is genuine?

I tried removing it with a Photoshop de-haze filter and came up with the following result:



I then gave it a mild dose of SCNR to reduce the green tinges.  But my version might well be less "correct".  What do you think?

Mark

[RobertM]

Hi Mark,

Perhaps I've pushed it a bit too far and that's why it looked a bit hazy, id also run SCNR earlier in the processing but I've just rerun on the stretched image and it looks much better now - thank you that was a good call.  That's also brought a bit more colour out in those dark clouds, will go for a Mk2 process and see what I can do.

Robert

[NoelC]

Very Interesting Robert.

I've never heard of Lynds before.  I imagine it was a real challenge to get the nebula to show behind the stars.
Noel

[RobertM]

Ok, I started from scratch and this time used a better workflow - it looks completely different but does it less wrong ?



Full sized (Drizzle stacked and binned 2x2): https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1908/30101660587_2eeafd2cd1_o.jpg

Robert

[Carole]

I discovered this target has another catalogue number:  SH2-140

and now I have found a number of images of this target.  Some have milkiness on the dark nebula next to where the Red "lip" is and some don't.  So its a job to know what is right and what is not.

I think the stars look better in the new version.
Carole

[RobertM]

Sorry Carole I uploaded the wrong one (Doh moment), this is the one I had intended to post:



Biggest size: https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1959/45039134831_cf7aefc905_o.jpg

[Carole]

Nice.