NGC 3324 crop & widefield.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

Eventually this will be part of a mosaic, which will include Eta Carina nebula.
I think this is my best NGC 3324 to date with the 8" astrograph, but I do have some coma corrector issue's and some tilt to sort out.
managed to keep the fainter surrounding nebulosity this time.

8” F/4 astrograph , baader type coma corrector,. HEQ Pro 5 mount, orion mini guider.
Camera.
Unmodded Cannon 1100D. Cooler box.

16 x 8 minute subs ISO 800 . Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker .Processed in Photoshop 7 and Olympus background subtraction tool kit.

Cheers,

Justin.

[nebulosity.]

That's real nice Justin! I imaged this the other day but no where as deep as this, can't wait to see the mosaic, I'm planing one in this area as well.

I like how you have captured the pinks as well as the deep reds, I quite like the colour balance Unmodded cameras give with the blues in nebulae.

Cheers
Jo

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Jo!

Yes me too, just love the colour from the unmodded camera.

Cheers,

Justin.

[multiweb]

Very nice colors but looks like noise reduction was a little too aggressive. The features and stars are bound together.

[alpal]

A nice picture that needs new processing in my humble opinion.
The stars look damaged but I realise that you had coma issues.

I would have removed the stars as per:
http://www.astro-photography.net/Star-Removal.html

(note delete doesn't work - just use fill & content aware.)

then processed the nebula -
later I'd put the stars back from a not so stretched previous version.
That would keep them smaller & tighter without tails.

cheers
Allan

[alistairsam]

hi Justin,
yep, a repro from scratch would help, the stars are smudged especially in the bottom left and top left.
was this an attempt to reduce noise?

Cheers
Alistair

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Marc!

Yep, tried to hide the horrible stars I wrote about but it didn't work.
Anyway, here's a repro think it looks better but it shows how bad the stars are.

I recently pulled everything apart on the scope and mucked up the spacing of the coma corrector, plus there's image tilt.



Thanks Allan!

My very old PS7 doesn't have that option unfortunately. One day I'll let the moth's out of my wallet and upgrade.



Thanks Alistair,

Your right, here's the repro.
No problem with noise, just got carried away trying to hide the horrible stars.

Cheers,

Justin.

[atalas]

Nice shot Justin.

[alistairsam]

Hi Justin,

if you don't mind, are you able to post a link to the raw stacked sub so I can try fixing the stars with startools just as a learning exercise, would be interesting to see the results from a different approach but same data. maybe someone else can try a different method.
most of us do have images with less than ideal stars and its a challenge to get them perfect or near perfect.
you might have to use dropbox if its large.

repro does look good but can't makeout the stars at this resolution.

Cheers
Alistair

[cometcatcher]

I like the repo. Can't see anything wrong with it at that scale.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Louie!



Thanks Alistair!

I'll post a link tonight, I need to setup drop box again.



Thanks Kevin!

Here's another repro.
This is the one I like the best, shows more nebulosity.

Cheers,

Justin.

[alpal]

It will be interesting to see how this is improved .
It's already quite good.

I took the same target last night.
I've just done the flats & I'm now doing the darks.
My Ha shots had a FWHM of 2.2 arc seconds!
Unfortunately the clouds came over at 1.00am so
I hope the results won't be noisy - could have done with a bit more data.

cheers
Allan

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Allan!

Getting some improvement with the data I have.


Cheers,

Justin.

[Ross G]

A very good photo of a great looking object Justin.

Ross.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Ross!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Shiraz]

looks very nice at the repro scale - definite keeper since it shows the nebulosity well.

As you say, the stars look a bit damaged at full scale - f4 is not very forgiving.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Ray!

Not wrong about F/4!

Cheers,

Justin.

[marco]

What a lovely image Justin! Great color balance :thumbsup:

Regards
Marco

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Marco!

Cheers,

Justin.