Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB (Gary Crawford)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: M 97 · NGC 3587 · Owl Nebula · PGC 2477924 · PGC 2479429 · PGC 2479466 · PGC 2481387 · PGC 2482169 · PGC 2482280 · PGC 2483306 · PGC 2485269 · PGC 2486236 · PGC 2486887 · PGC 2487391 · PGC 2488942 · PGC 2489233 · PGC 2490291 · PGC 2490640 · PGC 2493264 · PGC 2494570 · PGC 2496406 · PGC 2497480 · PGC 34279 · PK148+57.1

Powered byPixInsight

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

Powered byPixInsight

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

My two objectives with this project were to try to show some of the subtle blue and red colour gradations as well as bring out some detail in the structure. It looks less owl-like with this resolution. Ha: 240 sec x 37, Oiii: 240 sec x 39, Sii: 240 x 39 for a total of about 7 hrs 40 min. RGB data: 180 sec x 126 for 6 hrs 18 min. SH0RGB has almost 14 hrs of integration.

I found it challenging to bring out the details of the colour tones in the nebula as well as to do justice to the star colours and myriad of DSOs in the background. The colour scheme is strictly my own interpretation, using the new Toolbox tool, CobineRGBandNarrowband. Processed with PixInsight, calibrated with flats and flat darks. Other steps were WBPP with drizzle integration, ChannelCombination, DynamicCrop, DBE, BackgroundNeutralization followed by ColourCalibration, BXT, NXT, STX, stretched with GHS followed by a conservative tweak with HTF, SCNR, star colour enhanced with L-Mask applied and using the colour curve in CurvesTransformation, 2 scales of LHE applied, stars and background combined with PixelMath, a conservative application of NXT reduced some remaining noise. Finally I tweaked the overall saturation and contrast with a slight curves adjustments.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9699495
PixInsight job	479BG4UDUU7EUUM9ST0TWR19BWJWEECS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	11h14m56s.188
RA (top/left)	11h15m56s.881
RA (top/right)	11h12m13s.300
RA (bottom/right)	11h13m56s.228
RA (bottom/left)	11h17m38s.940

Dec (center)	+55°01′40″.13
Dec (top/left)	+55°23′15″.90
Dec (top/right)	+55°03′00″.28
Dec (bottom/right)	+54°39′55″.60
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°00′07″.18

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

Owl Nebula (M97) in Narrowband and RGB

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information