A Trifid alongside the Lagoon

[2020BC]

Here's my latest attempt at M8 with M20 alongside. The colors in this one look more natural I think.

Camera: Canon 350D (unmodified) prime focus.
Location: Canberra 24Jun06 1300 hrs UTC.
Exposure: 7 x 4 Mins, ISO 800, Noise Reduction On.
Scope: Orion 80mm ED with crosshairs piggyback on Meade SN-8.
Mount: Meade LXD-75 (with SN-8) Manually Guided.
Processing: Manual align in MaxDSLR, processed in ImageReady.

You can view a much larger version here (http://www.zodiaclight.com/images/M8-M20LagoonTrifid7x4Mins800ISOLOGSpre ad24Jun06Web1280.jpg) (289 KBytes)

[h0ughy]

great stuff, love the colours and the stars! Nice framing too

[RB]

Great image Bill, well done.
Nice touch with the star spikes.

[strongmanmike]

Ah a favourite region that!

You are getting some nice results with that unmodified DSLR and SN Bill :thumbsup:

Everyone on this group seems to be using DSLR's..? It appears that I am the only slave using a mono CCD and filterwheel?...sigh...I feel so alone :(

Mike :)

[strongmanmike]

Ooops, ok it wasn't done with the SN but the 80ED

Did you use a focal reducer on the 80ED or was it taken at the native F7.5?

Did you crop the image at all?

How do you find MaxDSLR to work with?

Cheers

Mike

[xelasnave]

Congratulations a fine capture.
alex

[toetoe]

the colour looks great, nice shot. :thumbsup:

[2020BC]

Native 7.5 on the 80ED.

The only cropping was to remove stacking shadows at the edge of the frame, so the field of view is about 1.75 degrees.

MaxDSLR is a good product for aligning and for doing log stretch, bias and (sometimes) flats, however for those special shots I prefer to use it do a manual alignment because sometimes it rejects quite a few of my good subs (for reasons unknown). By doing manual star alignment it also lets me have a close look at star/image quality and to reject images as need be. With MaxDSLR you can't do any image processing other than basic stretch and curves. There's no histogram for example.

Now that I've got a new laptop I intend trying MaxDSLR's autoguiding and image acquisition features. Hope they work.