IC1805 Heart in Cassiopeia

[The Thing]

First image taken on a recent holiday to Astrofarm near Confolens, France. 204x120s subs at gain 120 and -15c cooling. Obviously loads of data taken over two long nights, I am sure I can make more of it. I also have a pane to go above and one to go below to complete the Heart (I hope -it will be my first mosaic attempt!).

Image date, time and location:          2018-09-10/11 Confolens, France
Telescope aperture and focal ratio:     TS1506UNC f4, TS Komakorr
Camera and filters used:                   ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Baader Neodymnium 2" filter
Processing applied:                           PixInsight, Gimp 2.10

Click image for a full size version.

[RobertM]

Nice sharp stars Duncan, not quite sure about the colours though.  Is the Baader filter producing the rings around those brighter stars ?

Robert

[The Thing]

Hi Robert, the colours are calibrated using the Photometric Colour Calibration tool so theoretically correct, however I had lots of trouble with flats and darks and I think that has affected a lot of the image, I also got the amp glow issue which I didn't think affected my caneara. Funily enough I haven't touched the stars except to mask them off, deconvolution caused a right mess as did unsharp mask. A little edge enhancement using a GIMP GEGL  tool was applied afterwards.

I'm going to give it another go from scratch as I have two more panes to add and they all need to match!

[The Thing]

And yes the rings are caused by the Baader Neodymium filter on the far end of the Komakorr. It would be better near the camera.

[MarkS]

You've got some good data there Duncan!  Over 6 hour's worth.

I agree with Robert that the colour of the nebula seems to be a bit off.

To be honest, I've had mixed results with PCC.  The results are variable for one reason or another.  It seems to work really well on the well-sampled stars of the C11 though.

I'm definitely looking forward to the other panes.

Mark

[The Thing]

Thanks Mark.

I need to get the post processing sorted, must write lots of notes! Looking closely at the posted full size image it's very noisy and I never cropped it after stacking! Might explain the colour discrepancy and other things as the edge data is very iffy.