2020.11.03 – Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

Gear

Telescope – Meades 70mm Series 6000 Refractor
Main Camera – ZWO ASI294MC Pro
Filter – Optolong 2″ L-Enhance
Mount – HEQ5
Guide Scope – ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope
Guide Camera – ZWO ASI290MM
Controller – ZWO ASIAir Pro

Acquisition

29 Light Images at 120 gain, 300s exposure
29 Dark Images
200 Bias Images
No Flats

Elephant’s Trunk Nebula. IC 1396. 2,400 light years away.

The processing of deep space object images is really interesting. You’ve got this stacked image of light data. A DSO is not present in the image (or barely present) and your job is to take this to photoshop and uncover it. It’s sorta like being Horatio Caine and constantly asking yourself “Now enhance.”

It’s definitely not something you learn overnight. Especially if you’re not familiar with the tools in Photoshop.

Here is my originally processed image:

I was pretty happy with my original take. But then I looked at my California Nebula and I realized something. I missed a couple of steps and I overdid others. There’s too many stars. The area in middle seems pretty flushed. I over curved things. The more I looked at the image the more I saw areas I could have done better.

So, I took another stab at it.

In my second I attempt I took my time with the processing in photoshop. I always feel short on time which led to a rushed first round. I made sure not to go overboard with adjusting the curves. I also felt I did a good job minimizing the stars the second time around. To be honest I might have forgotten to do that step the first round. By minimizing the stars it really helped in adding more focus to the nebula. It helps push the nebula to the foreground more.

Overall, my second attempt of processing Elephant’s Trunk Nebula turned out really good. I think I’m finding the level I like my images to be. I’ve seen some astrophotographs that look a little overdone. Then you have others who really try to keep it as minimum processed as possible. At the end of the day it’s all preference. I’m just trying to find my personal preference.

Processing Steps in Photoshop: