my first Ha - Eta

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

In between the clouds tonight I managed to grab 55 mins of Eta Carina (ok some of the subs included some cloud cover!) in Ha.

Gerald very kindly let me try his Astronomik 6nm Ha filter and also thanks to Allan for the trial of his QHY8. I used my 10" f5 Newt!

This is my first attempt at Ha and despite the conditions and the fact that I have no idea how to process this sort of image taken with a OSC camera I'm very happy with the results

Hope tomorrow is less cloudy as I'd really like to have another more serious go at this....

Thanks for looking - any tips greatly appreciated

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's a terrific shot Peter. No tips from me - it's perfect. Keep'em coming.

[Hagar (Doug)]

That has come up very nicely Peter. Ha is a bit different to process. You would have to think black and white is easy but it is quite the opposite.

Well done, nice first Ha.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks for the comments Marc and Doug. I used Deep Sky Stacker and left the settings as colour image from QHY8 requiring debayering then desaturated to B&W in PS. Is that the way to go?

[leon]

Top shot Peter, very well excuted.

Leon

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

Thanks for the comments Marc and Doug. I used Deep Sky Stacker and left the settings as colour image from QHY8 requiring debayering then desaturated to B&W in PS. Is that the way to go?

I don't use DSS but whatever you're doing keep doing it. It's working.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Leon and Marc (once again). I had another go a processing this time with flats and some sharpening. I think this is better but it is easy to go too far

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Very nice Job Peter. Very nice.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Paul - I now must have a QHY8 and Ha filter of my own

[allan gould]

nice one Peter - well executed and framed as usual

[Hagar (Doug)]

Peter, The method you use is the same method I always used with the QHY8, after all you may as well use all photons passed by the filter. Some say you should debayer, split the image channels then desaturate the red channel only but I don't believe this to be correct.
Your second go at it is very nice. The sharpening has lifted the image quite a bit.
Well done.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

Gerald very kindly let me try his Astronomik 6nm Ha filter and also thanks to Allan for the trial of his QHY8.

This is gonna get expensive

Looking very nice...

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Good stuff mate, great contrast. Think I prefer the original one TBH. Repro a bit too sharp?

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

nice one Peter - well executed and framed as usual

Thanks Allan. It was a lot easier than I was expecting. There was no problem locating stars to align on with the Ha in place with a couple of seconds exposure and the mount/guiding seemed to go ok with 10 minute subs.

Originally Posted by Hagar

Peter, The method you use is the same method I always used with the QHY8, after all you may as well use all photons passed by the filter. Some say you should debayer, split the image channels then desaturate the red channel only but I don't believe this to be correct.
Your second go at it is very nice. The sharpening has lifted the image quite a bit.
Well done.

Thanks Doug. I might have a play with splitting the channels to see if it makes any difference.

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

This is gonna get expensive

Looking very nice...

It's all relative Jonathan - I don't have an automated dome (yet)

Originally Posted by troypiggo

Good stuff mate, great contrast. Think I prefer the original one TBH. Repro a bit too sharp?

Cheers Troy. I started with a more mild sharpen but thought it could take more. The result had more sharpening than I would normally use however I thought it still looked ok. I was thinking about combining this as Luminance with some colour data from the other night so wanted it to be quite sharp.

[RobF (Rob)]

Great work. Very pleasing shot.
Is that the sound of cash registers I hear ringing in the distance?

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Beautiful image and something I would like to do in the future, thanks for sharing the experience of using a OSC and Ha filter.