NGC 7023: My Attempt at the Iris Nebula
This is my attempt at capturing the beauty of NGC 7023, also known as the Iris Nebula. It's a celestial cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Cepheus, famous for its striking resemblance to an iris flower.
I'll admit, I was a bit unsure of the best approach for this target, and I'm already planning to revisit it when the opportunity arises to add more data. However, I'm really happy with how this first attempt has turned out! As always, I'm open to any suggestions for improvement – though I'm aware that my stars could use some work!
Acquisition Details:
- Integration Time: 1 hour 38 minutes + 56 minutes = 2 hours 34 minutes total.
- Sub-exposures: 49 x 120s @ Gain 300, and 14 x 240s @ Gain 300.
- Calibration Frames: Flat, Bias, and Dark Frames were all used.
Equipment:
- Telescope: Altair Starwave Ascent 70ED (F6), with a GSO Reducer/Flattener bringing the focal length to 336mm.
- Camera: Altair Hypercam 183C (Non-TEC Version).
- Mount: Celestron CG5 Mount.
- Autoguiding: 30mm f/4 Guide Scope with an SVbony SV305 camera.
- Filter: SVBony 2" UV-IR Cut Filter.
Processing:
My processing workflow primarily involved Photoshop, with Siril used for color calibration and NoiseXterminator for noise reduction.
Future Plans & Community Feedback:
I've received some excellent advice from the community, suggesting that significantly more integration time (aiming for 8-12 hours total) would be beneficial to bring out the fainter details and the extensive dark dust lanes that extend far beyond the brighter core. Imaging dark nebulae under light-polluted skies can indeed be challenging, and while I'm imaging from Bortle 5 skies, more data is always the key to revealing hidden structures.
I'm eager to gather more data on a clear night and hopefully refine my processing to better showcase the subtle beauty of NGC 7023.
