Criticism accepted...

[LewisM]

Took on board ll the critique for my latest M78 reprocess, especially size, so...gulp...here is a reprocess in all it's noisy glory as only an old ST-8XE cam can do :D Cropped it a little from the previous - the H-a to the right really does look washed out thanks to minimal data (less than 2 hours total for all subs)

Hope this pleases more. Yes, still panda eyes around the de-bloated stars - working on that.

Non-sharpened on left, sharpened on right.

Can't wait for M78 season again.

Biggadabetterer pictures is here Luigi:
Non-sharpened:http://www.astrobin.com/full/105735/0/

Sharpened:http://www.astrobin.com/full/106254/0/

EDIT: latest, larger version: http://www.astrobin.com/full/106575/0/

[LewisM]

:confused2:It's not THAT bad is it?:confused2:

[Bassnut]

No, it's good!. Dark and foreboding, makes the colour pop. Different, I love it :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Ta muchly sir.

[Andy01]

That's awesome Lewis! Difficult target, artistically rendered, brooding, menacing, dark & moody. Great stuff :thumbsup:

[cometcatcher]

Bigger is definitely better. Love it. :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Thanks Kevin. Still got major issues with black circles around the de-bloated stars, but will work on that as time permits.

Orion is coming up around 5 am here... wonder if I could sneak in a 20 second sub before dawn? :P

[Octane]

I saw the Pleiades at 5 this morning. What a lovely site! :)

I think you could raise the brightness of the sky which will help provide delineation between the dust and sky background. :)

H

[Regulus]

Yeah, what Andrew said. I like it.

[LewisM]

Fixed the stars, lightened the background a BIT (can't go too far without blowing out the paltry data)

http://www.astrobin.com/full/106523/0/

[gregbradley]

I prefer the original image. The stars in the object have been sharpened along with the object. This makes them look odd and harsh. The stars need to have the sharpening process blocked from affecting them when doing sharpening. Through a selective mask brushed in on the affected stars (paint them black) or a star mask applied to the sharpened layer.


Greg.

[leon]

Awesome Lewis, well captured.

Leon

[cometcatcher]

Sure, I did. :D

[LewisM]

Thanks again everyone. I agree Greg - I like the "softer" version too, but the data is too lacking in my opinion to do much else. I plan finishing this this coming Spring/Summer, ideally wanting at least another 4 hours on it.

Kevin, I have been tempted to set up my rig from my third floor back window and do Orion over the neighbours treeline as it comes up :rofl:

[Paul Haese]

Only thing I would like to see is it being bigger Lewis. Colours look good but it is pretty small as an image. Get it up around 2000 pixels please.

[LewisM]

Gawd Paul, you sound like my wife...bigger, get it up...:lol:;):P

OK, I'll post a big mongrel in all it's pixelated glory.

http://www.astrobin.com/full/106575/0/

[LewisM]

Smaller IIS friendly version of super-sized above:

[Paul Haese]

Too much information Lewis.:lol:

That now looks good. Maybe just a little black point clipped, but colours are very pleasing and detail is fine too.

[LewisM]

I just noticed (D'oh!) one of the subs is throwing some misalignment to the stack at the bottom right. I will sort through the stack and see which one has slight elongation. I recall when I did these I did bump the mount at one point and obviously forgot to scrub the sub.

CCDStack does a fine job, but it obviously couldn't/wouldn't clip or reject that one.

[cometcatcher]

You recently sold this scope, do you have another to image through Lewis?

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Wow!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Really enjoyed watching the progress of this one Lewis.
Better each time.

Cheers,

Justin.

[LewisM]

Thanks.

Two things I really like about this image:
1. Telescope was a 20 year old f/9 reduced to f/6.3 Vixen FL102S - a scope that I was told had negligable imaging ability and a poor focuser when I was deciding to buy it. I love the focuser, and I think it images just fine :D
2. Camera was an equally antiquated first gen upgraded to second gen SBIG ST-8XE, non-ABG. Not even on par with most DSLR's these days, but it gets COLD, and just plain works without problems.

Sure, it'd be nice to have a larger FOV, but that is what mosaics are about eh :) I guess that's also one reason I like the smaller image versions -less in your face.

[multiweb]

Cool shot. Very nice colors. :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Merci monsieur!

[astronobob]

Grouse Target and a top looking resulting image, really dig the pop and contrasting colours, well composed aswell , really like this .... top show and mighty fine work ...