IC 63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud

I have somewhat of a love / hate attitude toward IC63. It is a difficult target to capture and can be an even more difficult target to post process for the same reasons - relatively small and dim nebula with a very bright star in close proximity (yCas).

This is a Telescope Live dataset from the SPA1-CMOS OTA in Spain (a Takahashi 106FSC with a QHY600M Full Frame CMOS camera).

My own data acquisition in LRGBHa and this one in SHO confirm that there is very little signal from this object outside Ha. There is very little RGB, L, Oiii, or Sii signal to be had from this target. By very little, I mean approaching none for some of these filters/spectra.

However, the Ha blossoms across the full frame field with bright 'central' features and fine detail in the dimmer more distant reaches away from yCas.

I processed the dataset in PixInsight and I strove to both preserve and enhance the Ha Ghost and her lacy shroud that surrounds her. I did tone the stars back a slight bit to ensure pride of place for the Ghost, but She would not be complete without the inherent jewelry of the dense star field in which she exists.

I think this may be my best result for this object, due in no small part to the excellent quality of the dataset made available by Telescope Live.