Omega Centauri

[Astro_Bot]

My first attempt at Omega Centauri. Hashed together after my planetary imaging session - I had some spare time and snapped away before the clouds rolled in - 9 x 15-30s exposures at varying ISOs from 800-6400 with a Canon 600d through a Meade LX200-ACF 10" @ f/10. Unguided, no darks, no flats. Stacked in DSS with some modest post-processing in Gimp.

Large version here: Omega Centauri - Large (http://www.astrobin.com/81469/0/)

One question I have: DSS facilitates making a "star mask" which looks like it could be useful. But how does one actually use a "star mask"?

As always, any advice welcome. :)

[Irish stargazer]

Nice Capture !

[RickS]

Nice work for a first attempt!

I'm not familiar with DSS but I use star masks a lot in PixInsight to perform an operation on the stars only (e.g. increase colour saturation) or inverted to protect the stars (e.g. adjust dynamic range of nebulosity in the rest of the image).

Cheers,
Rick.

[Astro_Bot]

Thank, guys. Thanks for the advice, Rick. :thumbsup:

[astronobob]

Nice 1st one Bot, can note them cats eyes in the globs center good, means you have exposed well there :thumbsup:

[Astro_Bot]

Thanks, Bob. :thumbsup:

I lucked it in a bit with the exposures this time around. It could probably be improved with some more processing, but I've been looking at Justin's Omega Centauri and the mix of exposures he used. That gives me a good idea of how to approach the next attempt - focus on better data first, then better processing.