Gecko Nebula - SH2-126 in HaLRGB - August 2022
Televue 127is - AIS6200MM
A-P 1100 GTO AE, Antlia Pro LRGB & 3nmHa
L: (103 x 120s exposures, Bin 1, Gain 100)
R,G,B: (3 x 57 x 150s exposures, Bin 1, Gain 100)
Ha: (35 x 660s exposures, Bin 1, Gain 100)
Total Integration Time = 17 hours
Processed in Pixinsight
This nebula in Lacerta is a large, but very faint combination of dark/dust nebulosity and Ha emission nebula - resembling a Gecko (dust) moving around a Ha flame. At the Gecko head, it appears that the Ha is butt up and concentrated against the dust, while in other places the two overlap. The overall shape of the dust, including the dust further to the left of the "Gecko" is actually very conformant with the "Heart" Nebula. On the right hand side are some small reflection nebula - two from blue stars and one red star. Galaxies also abound in the background, the largest of which are in a cluster on the far RHS midway up the image.
Processing this was certaintly a challenge. Ha signal was added to the blue and red channel via continuum subtraction, and Ha luminance was added to the lum channel again by continuum subtraction (this time the lum and HaRGB extracted lum were used). The stars we also an issue to remove and place back as a few were not extracted by Starnet due to the surrounding emission nebulosity. Great of starnet to recognize a galaxy versus a star, though. In the end though, you can tell what stars must be lighting up what dust and what hydrogen. Using GHS was essential to balance brightness and colour, both within the nebulosity and between it and the stars.