Lots of interesting features in this chunk of sky! The bright "Cone" is shaped by stellar winds of newborn stars, much like the famous Pillars of Creation. The Fox Fur Nebula appears in the center of this image with the appearance of a fur pelt. The warmer colors represent the abundant hydrogen and sulfur emissions, while the blues represent the oxygen emissions. No empty space here!
Equipment:
OTA: Stellarvue SV105T w/0.8x reducer (588mm fl at f/5.6)
Mount: ZWO AM5N
Imaging camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool
Guiding camera: ZWO ASI120MM-Mini OAG
Autofocuser: ZWO EAF
Software:
NINA
PHD2
PixInsight
Acquisition:
Location: Joshua, TX (Bortle 4), Atoka, OK (Bortle 3)
Dates: 2/6/26, 2/21/26
Gain: 200 Offset: 50
Camera temp: -20C
Sii: 32×300" Astrodon 3nm 1.25"
Ha: 70×300" Astrodon 5nm 1.25"
Oiii: 26×300" Astrodon 3nm 1.25"
Total integration time: 10hr 40min
64x darks per calibration
30x flats per calibration
200x bias per calibration
Preprocessing:
WBPP script to generate calibrated images
StarAlignment
ImageIntegration
DynamicCrop
Luminance Processing:
Duplicated the Ha to process as Luminance
BlurXTerminator
NoiseXTerminator
HistogramTransformation
Removed stars using StarXTerminator
HistogramTransformation and CurvesTransformation to push nebulosity
Added stars back in using screen blend formula in PixelMath
Preparing separate Sii, Ha, and Oiii linear masters for tonemapping (applied to each master individually):
BlurXTerminator
NoiseXTerminator
StarXTerminator
HistogramTransformation
Combined prepared Sii, Ha, and Oiii masters with ChannelCombination to create Tonemap:
R: Sii
G: Ha
B: Oiii
Tonemap Processing:
NarrowbandNormalization
CurvesTransformation
Invert>SCNR>Invert with mask to remove magentas
CurvesTransformation
NarrowbandNormalization
Combined Tonemap with Luminance using LRGBCombination:
CurvesTransformation for final color balance and saturation
by KBALLZZ