Combination Chicken

[Retrograde]

Hi all,

been a while since I've had anything to post here. I finally got some dark skies at SPSP (along with rain, wind and snow). :rain:

This image falls a long way short of the detail available from narrow-band versions but I've been able to include star cluster NGC 3766 on the right-hand-side.
Framing is less than perfect as someone (me) clumsily tripped over the camera cable destroying the laptop connectivity so I had to revert to lying on my back on the ground looking at the tiny screen. :sad:

16 x 5 min subs through the Astro-Tech 65mm EDQ / Modded DSLR.
Hope you like it.

Larger: https://www.astrobin.com/full/348487/B/

[Placidus]

The open cluster looks beautiful in natural colour.

Mike

[Wavytone]

So is the cluster the flied lice ? :lol:

[h0ughy]

Fabulous

[strongmanmike]

Looks like it might just need flats..? otherwise it looks very nice Pete :thumbsup:

Mike

[multiweb]

Top shot Pete. Great colours and good framing including the cluster. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

A terrific image. Love the stars, pinpoint and nicely coloured.

Greg.

[Jeff]

Very tasty Pete!
Lovely focus and star colours.

[Atmos]

Really nice, great colour and detail showing :)

[Geoff45]

Well done Pete. My initial reaction was that there wasn't enough colour in the nebula, but the more I looked at it the more I came to appreciate the sublety of it. Well captured, framed and processed
Geoff

[willik]

Very nice image good colour and detail
Martin

[RickS]

Looks great to me too, Pete! Nice to see a non-NB version for a change.

[Retrograde]

Thanks Mike. Manual framing and shooting with an intervalometer is how I used to do things a couple of years ago but gee it's hard to go back to that after getting used to the comfort of controlling it all from a laptop. :lol:



Feel free to interpret it anyway you want. ;)



Thanks Houghy - appreciate it. :)



Indeed - I neglected to take flats at the time (not sure of an easy way to do this at night during a star party without upsetting the astro neighbours) and of course I forgot to take note of the orientation of the camera with the optical tube for later. :sadeyes:

Good news is that most of the tilt I was suffering with this OTA/camera combination is now gone by using an extension tube so I don't have to rack out the focuser very far. Still seems like there's a small amount when pixel-peeping at full-res.

[Retrograde]

Thanks Marc.

Also thanks for the tip you gave me at SPSP about balancing the tube a bit 'bum-heavy' in dec. Although I did still have a couple of phd2 guiding runaways in dec towards the end of this capture it did seem to help.
Obviously I still need to get to the bottom of the dec backlash issue on my mount.



Thanks very much Greg. :)



Thanks Jeff!




Cheers Colin!



Thanks Geoff!
I do sometimes have a habit of over-saturating my images so still trying to find the right balance. With this one I felt if I added more saturation the stars would no longer look natural.



Thanks Martin. :)



Thank-you Rick!

[gregbradley]

Indeed - I neglected to take flats at the time (not sure of an easy way to do this at night during a star party without upsetting the astro neighbours) and of course I forgot to take note of the orientation of the camera with the optical tube for later. :sadeyes:

Good news is that most of the tilt I was suffering with this OTA/camera combination is now gone by using an extension tube so I don't have to rack out the focuser very far. Still seems like there's a small amount when pixel-peeping at full-res.[/QUOTE]


Couple of things.
You can do a false flat in Photoshop later if you have to.
Also when taking flats unless you have something sticking in the scope that creates an uneven illumination rotating the camera around makes no difference. The unevenness of illumination is vignetting and is usually symmetrical and turns with it. The scope itself is round.
I take flats at dusk with a white cloth over the lens or sometimes in the morning in a roll off roof with the roof closed, a white cloth over the lens and pointing at a dull wall slightly illuminated. Both work, dusk flats seem more reliable. At a star party that would simply leave dusk flats.
I find flats a bit of an art and now I never assume they are ok and test them on actual images to see how well they correct and retake them as needed.
I am finding the can be too bright and overcorrect but if too dark they don't correct enough.

If all you want to correct on this image is a tad of vignetting simply use the vignetting tool in lens correction in Photoshop or the vignetting slider in Lightroom or any other image processing program. They usually have a vignetting correction slider.

Greg.

[Retrograde]

Thanks for this Greg.

I did know about the vignetting control in Photoshop and have used it regularly - can't remember if I used it or not on this image though.

I wasn't aware of the false flat in Photoshop however - I will have to check it out. I should get into the habit of taking dusk flats - particularly at star parties which is when I do a lot of my imaging. It wasn't an option on the night I took this however as it didn't clear till 8pm.