Doing narrowband processing for the first time, Jeff Dutton won the RASC Robotic Telescope editing contest for October 2020 with his ghoulish edit of the Bat Nebula.
Dutton said he used the “Level 2” files, reducing the images to 1080 x 1080 pixels to limit the size of the files. He said he did processing in PixInsight 1.8.8-6, in the HOO palette, referencing Chapter 23 of Warren A. Keller’s book “Inside PixInsight, second edition.”
“This is my first attempt at narrowband processing,” he wrote.
The target
In celebration of Halloween, October’s RASC RTScope editing contest target is NGC 6995 — the Bat Nebula, in the Eastern Veil Nebula.
Also known as IC 1340, the nebula is located in Cygnus. NASA states the object is about 1,400 light-years away from Earth, and spans about half a degree in our sky. NASA also states the Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star.
The prize
Dutton wins one year of access to all the RASC Robotic Telescope data, once the program becomes available. He also gets a super-awesome RASC fanny pack.
The contest
The RASC Robotic Telescope contest is on hold for now. The data for the telescope will be available for purchase and through a subscription in the near future.
