The Carina Nebula in False (Hubble Palette) Color

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Photographer:

Hal Heaton

Location of Photo:

Chilescope-Telescope 4

Date/Time of photo:

February 4th and 6th, 2020

Equipment:

Telescope: Unguided Very Small Telescope; Camera: Unbinned FLI Microline 16200 fitted with a Nikkor 200:2 telephoto lens (100 mm aperture, f/2); Filters: Red, Green, Blue, SII, H-alpha, OIII; Exposure time: 3-min

Description:

Although detail in images of nebulae can be enhanced by blending narrowband data into broadband RGB imagery, it also can be emphasized (often with better contrast) by using false-color to encode the spatial distribution of major atomic species contributing light to the scene. That approach was used to prepare this narrowband image of the Carina Nebula in CCDStack v2 and Photoshop CC 2019 based on 24-min stacks of SII, Ha and OIII data using the Hubble Palette. The initially falsely-colored background star field was replaced subsequently by blending in whitish stars from an unenhanced RGB image. The result was cropped to 3.9 x 3.9 deg, corresponding to 575 lys on a side at the assumed 8500 ly distance, and oriented so that north is down and east is to the right.