Messing around with monochrome

[assbutt94]

Been stuffing around with a 1600mm lately. It feels like i'm relearning this stuff.
Heres NGC 300 and NGC 2070 as a practice of RGB and dual narrowband editing. I captured M8 earlier in the season and rougthly process HA for a black and white image which was kinda cool. The detail compared to a DSLR was amazing.

High Res and Capture details
NGC 300: https://www.astrobin.com/66dqbg
NGC 2070: https://www.astrobin.com/znpnt0

[xelasnave]

Excellent detail...you have to be very happy.
Alec

[Zuts]

I am about to crank up the Edge 9.25, I will be very happy if I get images half as good as yours with the Edge HD 8. I am a bit worried about the guiding though. I am going to use my Baader Vario 60 mm finder, it has a focal length of 250 ml so may be up to the job? Do you use a guidescope or an OAG?

[PKay (Peter)]

Well done Nathan.

With NGC300 galaxy try masking it off and then reducing the background levels. Also add another 5 hours!

You can teach me how to use NB :-)

[assbutt94]

Thankyou Alex! Im pretty chuffed but I think there is more to be squeeze out of my setup mechanically and with guiding.

Thanks Zuts! I previously guided with a 400mm f/5 and 120mc camera. I'm using an OAG now with a 174mm mini. My images are much better, tighter stars, but at the same time my backfocus was changed to be correct and my DSLR had a bit of sensor tilt. If you have a reducer for the Edge I'd highly recommend it. It's also harder for the camera to pick up stars with OAG as smaller FOV and now its f/7 system. Your f/4.2ish finder scope is way faster. It's worth giving it a go!

Cheers Peter, I think my problem was I didn't do strong enough noise reduction while still linear.
With NGC2070 I gave it more (too much) noise reduction and it's closer to what I want. Do you use a light pollution filter with the color camera?


EDit: I've made a new version on astrobin which I feel looks better. Just changed the color balance a bit at the end with curves