Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 3:35 am NGC 7023 - The Iris Nebula
A beautiful reflection nebula (technically, NGC 7023 is the central star cluster, and the nebula is cataloged as LBN 487) illuminated by the bright 6.8 magnitude star dominating its center.

Details:
QSI 660 camera on 250mm RC, Astronomic LRGB filters
RGB 3.7 hours each
Processed with PixInsight and Photoshop
Final image resolution 0.79 arcsec/pixel, 21 arcminute wide field
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NGC7023_cb.jpg

Ann wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 4:39 am Wow, Chris, there's more! Much more! I just started from the end and saw the Iris Nebula!

So let's start from the beginning with the Heart Nebula. You are probably aware of what I think of mapped color images: they are not my favorites. But your image looks very good indeed. I see to my surprise that your Heart Nebula picture is a two-filter image. Really??? It looks so much better than such images usually do! You have created a rich palette of (natural-looking!!!) colors and a great sense of depth within the nebula. The star colors look very realistic, too.

On to the Whirlpool Galaxy. My first reaction was, oh, another M51 picture, how many have I seen? But on closer inspection, your image looks very good. Really! You have done so many details such great justice without going overboard and overdoing it.

The long yellow tidal tails of old stars emanating from the smaller galaxy NGC 5195 look great. As for M51, I love the subtle colors. There is exactly the right amount of blue, pink, yellow and various shades of dusty brown in your portrait of this iconic spiral. The arms are just the right shade of blue, and the inner-arm region is very beige indeed from old stars mixed with dust, as it should be! And there is just the right amount of pink from emission nebulas in the arms.

A subtle but amazing little detail is that I read somewhere that the original arms of M51 were not at all as long as they are now, and that they have grown longer as a result of the tidal interaction with NGC 5195. Well, in your image we can actually see where "the original arms" ended! One of the arms would have ended at about 8 o'clock and the other at about 2 o'clock! The rest is extensions!

And of course, I love the little barbell-shaped background galaxy at about 4 o'clock.

And now on to the rather amazing-looking M94! It goes without saying that I absolutely love the blue (and pink) ring of star formation. But the entire galaxy looks fantastic, as if it was made up of a series of nested rings. The Hubble picture of this galaxy shows a small inner bar surrounded by an incomplete dust ring. Then there is the brilliant blue ring of young stars, and then, as we can see from your image, there is a large brownish-beige ring reminiscent of a donut, and then there is a ring-shaped gap, and then there is another, faint outer ring! Amazing! By the way, I didn't know that this galaxy is mostly lacking in dark matter, and that astronomers don't really understand its formation or current structure.

I love the colors of your portrait of M94, too. Inside the bright blue ring the galaxy is bright yellow, and outside of the blue ring the galaxy is mostly beige-brown (which is, of course, a fainter, darker shade of yellow). A few little flecks of blue and pink are seen in the the large beige "donut". Amazing!

Great images, Chris, I really appreciate them! :D

Ann

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 3:35 am NGC 7023 - The Iris Nebula
A beautiful reflection nebula (technically, NGC 7023 is the central star cluster, and the nebula is cataloged as LBN 487) illuminated by the bright 6.8 magnitude star dominating its center.

Details:
QSI 660 camera on 250mm RC, Astronomic LRGB filters
RGB 3.7 hours each
Processed with PixInsight and Photoshop
Final image resolution 0.79 arcsec/pixel, 21 arcminute wide field
_
NGC7023_cb.jpg