The Tarantula Nebula, Chile

The Tarantula Nebula
Hacienda los Andes, Chile   –   February 18, 2023
— Ralph Paonessa
Canon EOS R6   *   TEC APO200FL f/8   *   ISO 1600   *   f/8

RGB H-alpha modified camera.

65 x 2 min = 2.2 hr total exposure

Stacked and processed in PixInsight with the following steps:

- Weighted Batch Preprocessing

... dark subtraction

... cosmetic correction

... local normalization

... integration by PSF Signal Weight

... drizzle integration

- Dynamic Background Extraction

- Spectrophotometric Color Calibration (avg spiral galaxy white ref.)

- BlurXTerminator

- Histogram Transform to non-linear

- StarNet2 to separate nebula from stars

- HDR Multiscale Transform

- Local Histogram Equalization

- Curves for contrast and saturation

- Shrink stars and recombine

- NoiseXTerminator

- Multiscale Linear Transform (sharpen)

I did not try to alter the color from the calibrated results, but I was surprised how much blue is present.

Photo ID: Tarantula Nebula RGB v2