IC 348, NGC 1333, & the Dust in Between

The highlights of this image are IC 348 and NGC 1333, are located in the constellation Perseus and are within the Perseus molecular cloud. Located on the top of the image, NGC 1333 (LBN741) is approximately 1100 light-years away and is associated with dark nebula LBN1450 (Barnard 205). Not every object needs a nickname and I mention that because this has one of the stupidest nicknames out there which I shall not mention here (Gary Imm is rubbing off on me). IC 348 on the bottom of the image is a 2-million year old open star cluster surrounded by a reflection nebula, vdB 19, located about 1000 ly away from Earth. The cluster contains hundreds of stars, however, most of them are hidden because of the intervening dust. IC 348 and NGC 1333 also have the distinction of being associated with star formation as many Herbig-Haro objects have been identified.

Numerous other objects such as dark nebulae, reflection nebulae, and emission nebulae are located between the two. I really like the dark regions (Barnard 3) to the right of IC 348 as they show some interesting structure. The high amount of dust is the source for most of these other objects which is what I also wanted to showcase. Be careful of what you wish for because it might come true. I got all the dust but now how to process it? That is to highlight it but make it look natural. I used the ASI2600MC color camera with no filter as we were lucky to have somewhat clear skies with no moon. Of course my skies are not exactly pristine being in the suburbs and not ideal for capturing dark reflection nebulae. Lots of integration time makes up a little bit for poor sky conditions. I decided to go with what was coming through and the dust did have more of a brownish cast rather than a gray cast as some dusty regions have so I went with that. I did some star reduction but a lot since I love stars and think they add to the image.

IC 348, NGC 1333, & the Dust in Between
Dates: 11-12, 11-14, 11-16, 11-17, 11-18
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Telescope: Askar FRA300 Pro
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 300mm
F/5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: ZWO AM3
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: Camera UV-IR
Focuser: none
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to a ZWO Mini guidescope
Exposure: UV-IR 356 x 120 (11h 52m)

Gain: 100
Offset 0
Temp: -20 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX, Bill's Color Masks, Bill's Stretching, GraXpert

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M81 & M82 plus Integrated Flux!

I have been wanting to capture the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN) around the M81, Bode's Galaxy, and M82, Cigar Galaxy, for a very long time but thought it would be a hopeless enterprise. However, last year our neighbors cut down some large trees in this direction so I finally had a view from the Happy Frog Astroshed. IFN is dust that lies outside the Milky Way's galactic plane but is illuminated from the entire galaxy rather than a one nearby star or stars. IFN is much further than dust inside the galaxy so it is very faint, thus requires dark skies and long integration. I was still unsure that the IFN would show up as the skies in southern Connecticut are not exactly dark - at my house it is Bortle 5-6. In order to make up for the lack of dark skies, I collected over 45 hours worth of data - a record for me.

The M81 and M82 are very popular galaxies and are often imaged together because of their close proximity to each other. M81 is a spiral galaxy approximately 12 million light-years away and a little over 96,000 LY across. M82 is a heavy star-forming galaxy and is therefore classified as a starburst galaxy. It is also located approximately 12 Million LY away but is only 150,000 LY from M81. It is only about 30,000 LY across but its past close encounter with M81 is believed to have caused the intense star formation. Other items of note are the irregular dwarf galaxy PGC28757 located just below M81 and the small spiral galaxy PGC28225 located in the upper left side of the image. The spiral nature of PGC28225 can be discerned if you look closely.

Processing this image took a great deal of time and patience. I started with the RGB then Ha so I could blend it into the red channel. I did my normal way, however, after watching a PixInsight video on Ha blending using Spectral Photometric Color Calibration (SPCC) I decided to give it a try. The results were better! After a couple of days playing around the HaRGB combo, the Luminosity was the next step. Although none of the IFN were in any of the subs it was quite evident in the stacked image although it took a lot of tweaking to bring it out. The hardest part was blending the luminosity into the HaRGB. This took lots of crazy processing gymnastics and I am not even sure I know what I did but I am happy with the result.

M81 & M82 plus Integrated Flux!
Dates: 12-20-22, 2-1-23, 10-13, 11-10, 11-11, 11-12, 11-13, 11-14, 11-16, 11-18, 11-19, 12-11, 12-12, 12-13, 12-15, 12-20
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: Antlia Ha, OIII; ZWO R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: L 536 x 120, Ha 90 x 300, R 234 x 120, G 228 x 120, B 217 x 120
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -20 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GraXpert, Bill Blanchan Color Masks.

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