Van den Bergh 152

Widefield image of a Cepheus region with special interest in Van den Bergh 152 (vdB 152, also known as Cederblad 201), the blue reflection nebula on the right-center and DeHt5 (PN G111.0+11.6) the planetary nebula on the bottom (a bit on the left), but including many other interesting objects: LBN538, B175, LBN528…

A few weeks ago I saw a nice Apod image of this field in HaRGB. As I had imaged it in the past but in RGB only, I decided to add some Hydrogen alpha data next summer. But before doing this, I have tried to improve my RGB image. 

Top right, you can see my 2010 image, as it is posted on my website. It was made with a set of Baader filters that produced very strong halos (in fact, this was the last image with the Baader filters: I changed them for Astrodon filters). The thing is that because of the halos and that at that time I didn't know any better, I stretched it very little.

I have tried to improve the image with the new tools available in PixInsight and also with what I have learned over the years. You can see the result bottom right.

The main processing differences are:

1. Using Local Normalization (within WBPP): obtained a linear image with lower FWHM, lower Eccentricity and also lower noise.

2. Stretching with GeneralizedHyperbolicStretch: smaller final size of the stars (and their halos).

3. Separation into large-scale and small-scale components: to process them separately and highlight nebulosities.

4. Use of MMT as noise reduction tool.

Click on the images for a full size version, or go to the Gallery section for complete exposure details.