Imaging a Kaleidoscope of colors on the North American Nebula

The LRGB (Luminance, Red, Green Blue) color pallet. The “natural” color of the North American Nebula

The LRGB (Luminance, Red, Green Blue) color pallet. The “natural” color of the North American Nebula

I recently came across a directory full of images labeled HD199479, which just happens to be the name of the bright star right at the very center of the above image. The North American Nebula. I had about 3 hours of color data imaged with my RedCat 51 telescope, and the ZWO ASI1600MM-C camera. I processed that data, and the above image is the results of that.

I knew though, that I had captured this image previously using narrowband filters. So I also had data captured for Hydrogen Alpha emissions, Sulphur II emissions, and Oxygen III emissions. With all that captured data, I could use Astro Pixel Processor to align all my final frames of L, R, G, B, Ha, SII, and OIII to each other. I could then combine them in all the common color pallet combinations for some exciting results I’d not seen with my own imaging.

In addition to the LRGB image, I was able to do LHaRGB, LRGBHOO, HOO, and SHO pallets. Check them out in the below gallery. In total, there’s 18 hours of captured images here. For all the gritty equipment details, check out my Astrobin page for the image set.