Faltering first steps. Eta Carinae in Hubble Pallette (I think)

[Stonius (Markus)]

I don't manage to get as much sky time as I'd like, so this image is my first time messing with narrowband, and my second time out shooting stuff. I aimed to get some data to play with through all of my filters, but I messed up the sequencing and my LRGB ended up being LRRR

But the NB worked out fine, I think. Many improvements to be made.

I don't really know what I'm doing, but, holy heck, I think I'm falling in love with narrowband!

I was figuring out how to do stuff for a lot of the night, but I managed to capture the following image in the wee small hours.

It's not perfect. There's something about the stars I'm not happy with, but this is kind of the limits of my abilities at the moment. I'd welcome any suggestions as to where I can go from here. Also, any suggestions as to what I can do with the Lum and Red channel data I collected while I'm waiting for another opportunity to get out there.

Stats;
Esprit 120
ASI1600
ZWO NB Filters (the newer revised ones)
Gemini II / G2
OAG/ASI290

Subs; (as I said, I ran out of time, so not much integration was possible)

Ha 300s x 2
S2 300s x 2
O3 300s x 2

Total Integration - 30 minutes (I know, pitiful!)

All at Gain 135, though I messed up the offset I shot Ha as intended at 50, The others at 10. :-(

Acquired with SGP & PHD
Processed with Pixinsight and finished in Photoshop when my PI knowledge and tutorials failed me.

Full Size in Astrobin https://astrob.in/389257/0/

Thanks for looking
Markus

[raymo]

Super.
raymo

[xelasnave]

That is excellent in my view ...nothing not to like.
Keep them coming.
Alex

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great shot. Bit heavy handed on the processing but the data is superb.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Really nice shot. Have to agree with Marc on the processing

[Stonius (Markus)]

Originally Posted by ChrisV

Really nice shot. Have to agree with Marc on the processing

Yup, looking at it now, I'd agree. I was really interested in the dust lanes and bok globules and pushed my meagre data too far. I also have desaturated darker rings around the stars. I'll have to revisit that tutorial about reducing star sizes. I had a go but it didnt seem to quite go the way the tutorial said it would and I didnt know how to fix it.

Cheers

M

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Stonius

It's not perfect. There's something about the stars I'm not happy with, but this is kind of the limits of my abilities at the moment.
Markus

I am guessing that you tried deconvolution and went a bit heavy handed or perhaps you didn’t use a deringing mask.

[Stonius (Markus)]

I tried deconvolution. I couldn't make it work for me in the way it said it should in the tutorial. Tried deringing too, but I think I got frustrated with the tutorials and went to photoshop and imported the starmask. I think my attempts to reduce star size in PS were the problem.

Thanks - I guess creating better masks and all that deconvolution and noise reduction inside PI is the next learning leap.


Best,

Markus