The Neck of the Pelican Nebula in Cygnus

The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC 5070 and IC 5067) is an H II region located about 2000 light years away that is associated with the North America Nebula, but it’s divided from its neighbor by a foreground molecular cloud filled with dark dust. This region has an active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds, with bright young stars ionizing gas and eroding dust clouds. A particularly dense filament of dust stretches away from Herbig–Haro object 555, which is emitting two jets, a telltale sign of an embedded protostar.

This image uses Ha for luminance, and SHO for color. I tried a standard SHO palette image, but the OIII and SII in this area are very faint, and a lot of detail was lost. I much preferred the HaSHO version.

Exposure: Total exposure time about 20.3 hours. 18:21:22 x 20 minutes SII:Ha:OIII. All bin 1x1. Captured June – September 2021.
Light pollution: SQM ~18.38 (Bortle 7-8, NELM at zenith about 4.5, Red/white zone border.)

Seeing: FWHM of integrated each narrowband sub was 2 arcseconds
Image scale at capture: 0.6 arcsecs/pixel = f/5.7
Scale of presentation: 1.2 arcsecs/pixel (50% of original scale)

Equipment:
Scope: C11 (standard, not Edge) with Celestron 0.63 reducer
Mount: Paramount MX+, connected via ASCOM Telescope Driver 6.1 for TheSkyX, with MKS 5000 driver 6.0.0.0
Camera: SXVR-H694, connected via SX ASCOM driver 6.2.1.17140 (SX 1.2.2 also installed)
Filter wheel: Atik EFW2 with 7x1.25 carousel and Artemis 2.4.3.0 driver
Filters: Astrodon Type IIi LRGB, 5nm Ha and SII, 3nm OIII
Rotator: Optec Pyxis 2", connected via Andy Galasso's 0.4 driver (Optec Pyxis Rotator AG)
Focuser: Rigel Systems GCUSB nStep motor with driver version 6.0.7 on stock Celestron focuser
OAG: Orion Thin OAG
Guide cam: Lodestar (first generation). 4 second exposures
Automation SW: Sequence Generator Pro 3.1.0.558
Guide SW: PHD 2.6.9, connected to guide cam via native SXV driver
ASCOM: ASCOM 6.3.0.2831
Platesolving: PlateSolve 2, failover to local Astrometry.net 0.19 server
Collimation: Metaguide 3, using ASI120MM connected via ZWO Direct Show driver 3.0.0.2

Processing Workflow by Workspace in PixInsight 1.8.8-12:

1. Calibration
Calibration with WeightedBatchPreProcessing with flats and bias, using Cosmetic Correction with a master dark
Blink to preview and reject a few frames

2. Stack and Mure Denoise
Image Integration on each channel
Mure Denoise on each channel
Dynamic Crop

3. Linear Processing
Dynamic Background Extraction on each channel

4. Ha Stretching
Histo Trans x 2
StarNet++ version 2 to remove stars
Curves Trans
TGV Denoise to reduce fine-grained noise
Curves Trans
Another round of TGVDenoise
Make two separate images:
 a. Ha Nebula
   Mild Localized Histogram Equalization to bring out detail
  Mild Multiscale Linear Transform for sharpening, using mask to accent only the bright edges
  Result = Ha Image


 b. Dust Clouds
   HDR Multiscale
   Save as Dust Clouds

5. SHO Color Processing for Nebula
ChannelCombination of unstretched SII, Ha and OIII images
Screen Transfer Function, with RGB channels unlinked, applied to Histo Trans
StarNet2 to remove stars, creating a star mask and saving that as SHO Stars
ChannelCombination of original image with Ha Image to create Nebula Image
Curves Trans to brighten

6. Blend Nebula and SHO Stars
In Photoshop:
Apply SHO Stars to Nebula Image as a screen layer
Stretch stars layer with curves, using a clipping mask to brighten only the stars
Blend in Dust Cloud image as a luminance layer, using a mask, to enhance dust cloud at lower left
Save as TIFF

7. Final
Mild denoise on central clearing, using a mask
ICC Profile Transform to sRGB
Resample to 1/2 original scale
Save as JPG