Monday, March 10, 2025

NGC2359 Thor's Helmet

 
NGC2359 (Thor's Helmet)

Between the trees in front of my terrace and the middle support beam I'm only afforded a 120 min window for imaging an object at the altitude of NGC2359. System consisted of Celestron 8 SCT AVX, Starizona NightOwl 0.4X reducer/corrector, ZWO ASI294MC Pro

Things get interesting with gradient removal. My area is heavily light polluted and since I only use a broadband light pollution filter the full image suffers from a halo near the outer edges. The image is cropped but still suffered from some haloing.  

GraXpert offers a number of gradient removal options including an AI version. RBF with thin_plate worked best for reducing the background gradient. The others produced various artifacts including some very dark splotch like areas adjacent to the nebula. Post processing with PaintShop Pro 2021