IC 1396 - vdb 142

I keep trying to put together a respectable color image of the this object using the Ha as Luminance but no matter what method I use to process it, I dont like it. It looks too contrived trying to blend narrowband with wideband RGB. Thats just my opinion, I like pure Ha better. But since folks like color, here it is. Ha:[Ha+R]:G:B

as usual, image details are in the link

http://rattlesnakeobservatory.com/IC1396RGB.html

Attached Image:

Wow!

Nice image. That is a huge object!

Keith

Superb! 8O

Thanks folks. I'm glad you guys like my effort, it is appreciated.. 8) . However, if you look at some images of this object with film (particularly Chuck Vaughn's) http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Tricolors/ic1396.html you will see the huge range of color that this object displays and I have not captured even a portion of it, except for a bit of the purple. The Ha+R blend washes out most colors besides red, and the Ha lum puts the nail in the coffin. Its a fairly falsified image. I would like to get full color ranges when I blend RGB data and this is definately not the way to do it. It think in the future I will stick to pure narrowband, or pure RGB when imaging nebulae. Thats just my preference.

Vince

Hi Vince,

That is a superb image! Ha+RGB is a processing beast unto itself. There *are* techniques for processing these to get the full dynamic range - and I'm not one who knows what they are Nevertheless, you have a fantastic image there as it stands. I know what it's like to be hard on oneself - I'm the king of that!

Eric

SWEET shot Vince! 8)