Wizard Nebula

Target details

The Wizard Nebula surrounds NGC 7380, a young star cluster still forming in Cepheus, about 7,200 light-years away. The cluster was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787, and the nebula is also listed as Sh2-142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalogue. Its mix of stars, gas and dust makes a shape some people see as a medieval sorcerer. The star-forming region spans about 100 light-years, so it covers more sky than the Moon, but it's very hard to see by eye, usually needing very dark skies and an O-III filter.

Capture details

Data captured over 15 nights between 12th September 2019 & 1st October 2020.
Imaged as a 1x2 mosaic.
74x 10 minute exposures with Hydrogen-Alpha filter.
161x 10 minute exposure with Oxygen (III) filter.
74x 2 minute exposures with Blue filter.
82x 2 minute exposures with Green filter.
83x 2 minute exposures with Red filter.

Total Exposure = 47.1 hours.

Equipment details

Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 460EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II

Processing details

This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.
Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight using Batch PreProcessing.
Dynamic Crop - To remove black edges & integration artifacts. (Each Channel)
Gradient Merge Mosaic - To create mosiac image. (Each Channel)
Dynamic Background Extraction - To remove gradients. (Each Channel)
Channel Combination - To combine RGB channels.
Photometric Colour Calibration - To calibrate colours. (RGB Image)
SCNR - To remove green cast. (RGB Image)
Deconvolution - To bring out some fine detail & tighten stars, 50-100 iterations. (Each Channel)
Multiscale Linear Transform - Noise reduction. (Ha & Oiii)
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the Ha, Oiii & RGB. (Using statistics process to keep background levels evenly)
Channel Combination - To blend Ha & Oiii into HOO image.
SCNR - To remove green cast from HOO stars.
PixelMath - To replace HOO stars with RGB stars, with inverted starmask in place.
TVGDenoise - To reduce noise, with Rangemask to protect nebula.
Histogram Transformation - To clip blacks slightly.
Curves Transformation - To boost galaxy saturation, with inverteded nebula mask in place.
Curves Transformation - To boost contrast, with inverted nebula mask in place.
UnsharpMask - To sharpen with inverted nebula mask in place to exclude stars & background.
Local Histogram Equalisation - To sharpen / add contrast, with previous mask in place.
Dark Structure Enhance - To boost contrast.
Morphological Transformation - To shrink stars, with inverted starmask in place.

Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.

Increase Contrast (+25)
Reduce Highlights (-25)
Boost Saturation (+25)
Boost Red Saturation (+50)

Export final JPEG for upload.