Iris Nebula, NGC7023 by Anne van Houwelingen

Iris Nebula, NGC7023 by Anne van Houwelingen

Iris Nebula, NGC7023 by Anne van Houwelingen

Imaging Location: My backyard (orange zone)

Telescope: Ritchey-Cassegrain (prime focus). F=1000mm F/D=3.0

Camera: Starlight Xpress SXVR-26C OSC

Integration time: 15 hrs over 8 nights (90x600s). Heavily dithered.

Pre-processing: APP

Average stack, quality weight, discard worst 5%, LN sigma clip kappa 3 – 1 iterations

Post Processing APP + Photoshop

APP: Calibrate background, remove light pollution, calibrate star colors on area’s without nebulosity, HSL to eliminate green pixels and reduce color noise of background, DDP (20%BG, 3 sigma, 2,.5% Base), Highlight protection.

Photoshop: Various targeted contrast stretches, noise reduction, selective sharpening, star shrinking etc.

About the object:

Diffuse reflection nebula in a molecular cloud complex. In its center a young pre-main sequence star whose stellar wind and UV radiation have carved out the cave like structure and lights up the walls.

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