Hi Chris that’s a really solid start. Great colour coming through and quite a bit of detail for only an hour of data. I’ve been having a lot of fun the last few months imaging a few PNs - they’re challenging targets but super cool and there’s so much variety.
So regarding your question- I’ve never imaged this one but if it were me approaching this target, I’d probably approach it like this:
1) Check out some of the best images online and see what kind of filters ar being used. I did a quick search and it’s defiantly going to suit a dual narrowband (Ha/Oiii) filter.
2) if you have the dual narrowband filters, using APP you can do a channel extraction to extract the respective signal. Lots of processing advantages doing this especially if you bring it into a program like PI.
3) you might well need 5min or even longer subs to reveal the PN, but shoot stars in rgb with much shorter subs to keep them under control. It’s a pretty dense field so you also have the control to pull them back a bit too if you process them separately.
4) depending on the signal coming through, I normally aim for at least 15hrs in the suburbs for narrowband. longer for broadband. It just makes processing so much easier with more signal you don’t feel like you need to force it. But depending on your appetite for the target and the weather I guess you just get what you can.
5) for the small targets with fine detail, some nights just won’t work out. If the seeing is mush it’s better to shoot something else.
David, thanks for your extensive and informative reply.
As a first step I collected another hour's worth of data last night with the same setup as the previous nigh and processed the combined data. The background noise is less.I used less saturation and this has really helped in taming the stars.
Yes I have seen many published good photos and read the details of their acquisition.But I do not have any filters so that path is not available to me.I have always assumed that with my Bortle 1 location I did not need any, so pennies to save for filters.
Anyway attached is the 20 frame result.
Chris
