Larger size jpg images available here: 1920 pixels wide Full size: 2709 pixels wide
The great star forming region NGC 1333 in the Perseus Molecular Cloud
About this object
This image has a great story behind it. I recently posted an image of NGC 1333 taken from home with my 152mm refractor. A friend of mine and also a WM Keck Astronomer in Hawaii, wrote me that he liked the image and he had high resolution data of NGC 1333 taken with the 4 m Mayall reflector on Kitt Peak that had not been combined into a color image. The data was used in a research paper published in 2005 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AJ....129.2308W/abstract in the astronomical journal. The authors found 72 new HERBIG-HARO objects within a larger field and many within the field of this image. I've also included a link to an annotated image which shows the new HERBIG_HARO discoveries. The resolution of the image is 0.28 arcsec/pixel. Please check out the higher res image links above for incredible resolution of nebula details.
Processing: The image is a false color composite assigning SII and Ha to the Red channel, Ha and I band to the Green channel and I band to the Blue channel using pixelmath. A synthetic luminance image was created from the three masters and 40 iterations of deconvolution were run sharpening the luminance. This was combined with the color composite creating the image above. A starless mask was generated using the luminance image and Starnet ++. This mask was used to perform several iterations of local histogram equalization. Saturation was increased also using the starless mask. No noise reduction was performed on the image.
This image has a great story behind it. I recently posted an image of NGC 1333 taken from home with my 152mm refractor. A friend of mine and also a WM Keck Astronomer in Hawaii, wrote me that he liked the image and he had high resolution data of NGC 1333 taken with the 4 m Mayall reflector on Kitt Peak that had not been combined into a color image. The data was used in a research paper published in 2005 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AJ....129.2308W/abstract in the astronomical journal. The authors found 72 new HERBIG-HARO objects within a larger field and many within the field of this image. I've also included a link to an annotated image which shows the new HERBIG_HARO discoveries. The resolution of the image is 0.28 arcsec/pixel. Please check out the higher res image links above for incredible resolution of nebula details.
Processing: The image is a false color composite assigning SII and Ha to the Red channel, Ha and I band to the Green channel and I band to the Blue channel using pixelmath. A synthetic luminance image was created from the three masters and 40 iterations of deconvolution were run sharpening the luminance. This was combined with the color composite creating the image above. A starless mask was generated using the luminance image and Starnet ++. This mask was used to perform several iterations of local histogram equalization. Saturation was increased also using the starless mask. No noise reduction was performed on the image.
Image Details
- Optics : KPNO 4 m Mayall reflector
- Camera: NOAO Mosaic imager (8 CCD's)
- Filters: 8nm Ha, 8nm SII, 153nm SDSS I band
- Exposure (min): Ha ~ 45min, SII ~ 45min, I band ~ 15min
- Processing: PixInsight 1.8,
- Location: Kitt Peak National Observatory
- Image Credit: Josh Walawender, John Bailey and Bo Reipurth
- Processing: Jon Talbot
- Date exposed: Oct 11-14 2001
