M8 in SHO

[pluto]

Although the seeing was pretty average I took advantage of the clear skies over Sydney for the last two nights. This Hubble palette Lagoon is the result.

I'd be keen to hear any opinions, especially on the colours. I like working with SHO images as there's no 'right' way to do it and they're never going to look 'real' or 'natural' so there's a lot of scope to come up with a pleasing look that shows off the details. I'm pretty happy with the way this one looks, at least on my monitor!

SII – 11x20min
Ha – 7x20min
OIII – 6x20min
Takahashi TSA-120 / SW EQ6 / SBIG STT-8300M / FW8G + AO-8T / StarTools / PS / LR

Taken from Rushcutters Bay in Sydney.

Bigger/better quality one here:
http://hughsblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/m8-in-hubble-palette/

[mbaddah]

This is BEAUTIFUL!

[pluto]

Thanks Mohammed :D

[Bassnut]

Well, that pops!. A bit blown, but pretty good for urban sydney. I mucked around curving it down a bit and colours got more saturated and to my mind much better generally. Excellent detail.

[pluto]

Thanks for the feedback Fred.
Are you saying it's not saturated enough? I thought if anything it was a bit too saturated as my lappy screen that I process on has slightly more subtle colours than many screens I've seen my images on.

If you have time would you mind posting your curved down version so I can see what you're thinking?

Cheers,
Hugh

[pluto]

A bit more fiddling, less blown out, a little more contrast and slightly tweaked colour.

[OzStarGazer]

Really beautiful. There is definitely ART in deep space.

[multiweb]

Love the colours. Bit heavy handed on the sharpening/noise reduction though. High-res looks a little bit plastic(ish).

[strongmanmike]

Nice image Hugh but I do agree with M8 loving Marc here, never the less considering it was taken from the heart of a big city ya gotta be happy :thumbsup:

Mike

[pluto]

Thanks!


Thanks Marc, You're right, I've dropped the last bit of NR I was doing in Lightroom a bit and it's brought a bit more detail, and grain, back in. Unfortunately as I imaged it from inner Sydney the subs are super noisy and I don't really want to spend more than 8 hours on the Lagoon!

[Rod771]

Great image Hugh!

The second version looks really good on my screen.

Well done.

Rod

[pluto]

Thanks Rod!

[cazza132]

Wow, stunning detail - esp at the periphery of the nebula! Colour separation between Ha and SII good - haven't imaged that way before with narrow band filters - but looks like you have acquired and managed the data exceptionally well! I like the original version. The natural luminosity is better with the brighter core :) I reckon you could tweak the saturation further for an awesome desktop background! :)