M and M s

[Alchemy (Clive)]

M16 and M17

would you believe Melbourne has turned on some nice weather, a chance to get out and do a couple of runs

Gear used

Mount G11
Camera QHY8 Offset 117 Gain 50 at -40 deg celcius
Scope 12 inch f5 Newtonian
Guiding PHD & ED 80
Exposure time M16 102 minutes m17 150 minutes

wide images are at about 30%, crops as per file name. Thats about all i can do with 200kb

Well thats about it until the next batch of good weather..... it could be a while

thanks for looking and any constructive comments.


cheers clive

[gregbradley]

Wow -40C that is some serious cooling!

Nice images. You are pushing that ED80 to the limit of its resolution.
The stars may have more colour in the data you've collected.

If you have Photoshop I would try selecting out the stars with the colour range tool, expand the selection 2 pixels, feather it 2 or 4 pixels, then run 1 or 2 pixels of minimum filter, then increase saturation 60% and then perhaps colour balance to bring out even more colour with the highlights colours and then deselect the stars.

Then run a bit of smart sharpen to sharpen it up or if you want to get clever use a mask to selectively sharpen the neb areas where there is detail and nowhere else.

Greg.

[iceman (Mike)]

The data looks good, Clive. But I think the processing looks a bit muted from your normal efforts?

[Garyh]

Yes, looks very good Clive!
Maybe some more saturation in there but I think they are quiet nice as they are..
cheers

[bluescope]

Would be great to have some clear skies here ....... another week of bad weather starting today after having had one nice day yesterday but still cloud cover last night. This winter really sucks for astronomy.

I like the wide field versions of these Clive.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Thanks all for looking, yes mike i did underdo the processing a bit on these,

No more comments i will take these back to the photoshop for some serious work ....... give me a week or two.....

thanks for the tips greg....... pm sent


steve, gary cheers