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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