NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula - First Light with 550D Full Spectrum and Optalong L-eNhance

[chris_g]

My first light with my "new" full spectrum 550D and L-eNhance filter

29 300 second subs, 10 dark, 20 flat, 20 dark flat, 20 bias. There was a lot of moisture in the air that wasn't really visible until the moon made her show near the end of the imaging run. The calibration frames did well to remove it from the image.

The Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174; Sh2-252) surrounds open star cluster NGC 2175 and lies about 6,400-7,200 light years from us. The nebula is a stellar nursery, where new stars are forming. In addition to the reddish emission nebula, it contains bluish reflection components. One is at lower right of the nebula, and another is around the brightest star inside the nebula. This field is located in the northern part of Orion, just below the feet of Gemini. Being set in the winter Milky Way, the image is full of stars that show a range of colors varying from orange-red to blue-white based on their temperature (blue is hottest; red coolest).

Comments, good bad indifferent are welcome...

As always, thanks for looking, what you see is what you get.

Clear Skis!

[ic_1101]

Very nice first light with the new camera Chris and I like the additional info, thx!

[Larry 1969]

Nice job Chris!
Looks like you got everything set up and playing well together.

Larry

[Juno16]

Very nice Chris!

The camera mod coupled with the L-eNhance is surely a Ha grabbing combo!

Of course, the stars suffer somewhat with all of the Ha signal. If you can extract the stars and work with them to reduce the red (saturation) or whatever you can to make them more “natural “ looking. The “off” star color is a somewhat a negative side effect to using this fine filter.
Personally, I’ll deal with the stars because I love to shoot with this filter. It’s almost like magic in my lp.

Of course, you could always shoot rgb stars with a uv/ir cut filter if you want to. Or, say the heck with it and just deal with the stars!

A fine image sir! I’m sure that you are excited with your new imaging setup as I would be! Opens up huge doors!

[messier 111]

very nice work , thx .

[chris_g]

Very nice Chris!

The camera mod coupled with the L-eNhance is surely a Ha grabbing combo!

Of course, the stars suffer somewhat with all of the Ha signal. If you can extract the stars and work with them to reduce the red (saturation) or whatever you can to make them more “natural “ looking. The “off” star color is a somewhat a negative side effect to using this fine filter.
Personally, I’ll deal with the stars because I love to shoot with this filter. It’s almost like magic in my lp.

Of course, you could always shoot rgb stars with a uv/ir cut filter if you want to. Or, say the heck with it and just deal with the stars!

A fine image sir! I’m sure that you are excited with your new imaging setup as I would be! Opens up huge doors!

My plan for future gear are a 2" filter wheel and replace my L-Pro clip filter with the 2" version. But I need to sell some things first. NGC 2174 has some reflection nebula in it. I've discovered almost everything benefits from HDR shooting.

[Ylem]

Looking good Chris!

[STEVE333]

Congratulations on getting all the equipment working together. The Monkey Head stands out nicely.

Steve

[Gmetric]

Nicely done and congrats on a successful first light.

[Jockinireland]

Looking good Chris. Coming on in leaps and bounds now.. Backgrounds maybe just a shade dark?

[chris_g]

Looking good Chris. Coming on in leaps and bounds now.. Backgrounds maybe just a shade dark?

I tend to darken the background on everything. When I think space I see bright objects on a cold black background. Perhaps I should rethink that...

[Graeme1858]

Good one Chris. Congratulations on your first light.

Regards

Graeme

[Larry 1969]

I tend to darken the background on everything. When I think space I see bright objects on a cold black background. Perhaps I should rethink that...

Space is a dirty, dusty place. I started out trying to achieve an inky, black background too but realized that's usually not the case.

Larry

[chris_g]

I tend to darken the background on everything. When I think space I see bright objects on a cold black background. Perhaps I should rethink that...

Space is a dirty, dusty place. I started out trying to achieve an inky, black background too but realized that's usually not the case.

Larry

That will certainly make processing easier. Darkening the background always makes it that much more difficult to get detail from feinter objects.