M1 (The Crab Nebula) - Feb 2022
Planwave CDK 12.5 - AIS6200MM
A-P 1100 GTO AE, Antlia Pro 3nm NB filters
HSO (3 x 12(16) x 900s exposures) = 12 hours int time (3 nights)
M1, The Crab Nebula in Taurus, is the bright super-nova remnant in the sky. The supernova that created it detonated in 1054, as noted by Chinese astronomers, and continues to expand at a rate of 0.2 seconds per year. At its centre is a neutron star (not visible) that lights up the nebula with gamma and X-rays and is actually the brightest source of this radiation in the sky as well.
M1 is also notable as the first entry in Messier's list of "not-comets".
While likely this is far from the best image of M1 you will see, I posted it for a few reasons.
1) It is my first image using my new "Antlia Pro 3nm" filters
2) It is a "minimalist" processing venture, using only a few steps - Mure Denoise, automatic background extractions, GHS stretching (colour enhancement option), and cropping. Nothing else. No additional star removal, colour calibration or manipulation, deconvolution, wavelet manipulation, noise reduction or sharpening. I do intend on doing these processing steps and will post the results when I have done so. But I think there is beauty in having the image "in the raw"
THe GHS script, in colour enhancement mode uses the same colour enhancing algorithm as employed with the "Arcsinh stretch" process. However, the gerneralized hyperbolic transforms are applied rather than the arcsinh transform to be more gentle of stars, highlight dim nebulosity.