Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  HD164963  ·  IC 4677  ·  NGC 6552
NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula, Pavle Culum
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula

NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula, Pavle Culum
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Well this was a bit of a challenge...

First off, 20s subs with ALP-T filter were nearly impossible to stack due to low star detection. I ended up using ASI Studio for this as all other platforms failed (DSS, PI, ASTAP, Siril). Additionally, getting any detail from the core required a lot of trial and error during stretching - luckily GHS was the tool to use in this instance. A side effect of using ASI Studio is lack of any sort of control or nuance when it comes to stacking parameters. The resulting stack had a weird colour balance that refused to play with any of the exterminator tools (noise/blur). So sharpening/deconvolution and denoise had to be done manually in PS instead.

I wasn't sure if i'd get enough detail with only 4 hours for the remainder of the nebula (300s exposures), but i'm very happy with the results for the outer layers. Final compositing was done in PS with some creative HDR blending and layering. Not an ideal final product but i'm pretty happy with the first attempt. It was a fun project and something i will revisit in the future under different circumstances/gear.

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula, Pavle Culum
    Original
  • NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula, Pavle Culum
    B

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye Nebula, Pavle Culum