Tarantula Ha - New Filter

[loc46south]

Hi All - I have tried to capture the essence of this nebula many times over many years. A sampling of the latest effort using a new 3nm Ha Astrodon filter - I have just replaced all my NB filters with the 3nm filters. They are expensive but are showing great promise. :D

Larger copy http://www.pbase.com/loc46south/image/156976547/original

12 x 600sec - ST10XME - SW120 Equinox - Losmandy G11 Gemini L1

Thanks
Geof Wingham

[Bassnut]

Thats good, you will find 3nm a big improvement and well worth the $, especially with a classic high QE cam like the ST10XME. But your processing needs to take a step up to take advantage. The image is a bit compressed and blown. A quick fiddle in PS rendered much more detail.

[strongmanmike]

Wow, there is so much nebula in there I thought it was a flat frame :lol:

While, yes, perhaps the processing could have been a bit more subtle :question: (although I can't talk (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/137300044/original):whistle:) I love images like this, remind me of the amazing deep schmidt plates of the 70's and 80's that I thought were unapproachable :thumbsup:

Mike

[multiweb]

Stars look really good. Heaps of neb for sure. :lol: You might want to do a tri-color with Sii and Oiii. If you can match that data it would be a corker. :thumbsup:

[loc46south]

Thanks for the comments & suggestions :-

Bassnut - I don't use PS only Pixinsight - It is still early days with my processing skills.

Strongmanmike - I deliberately tried to push the fainter nebula out of curiosity - I was more impressed by the filters ability to suck out the centre of the nebula, which most times it is burnt out.

Multiweb - Its going to be a long project I think - the narrower filters obviously need a lot more data to control noise- though I am impressed by early results.

The original image posted was not processed it has only been given a masked stretch in Pixinsight - I wanted to see how it could push the fainter parts of the nebula - for comparison I have included the original image as it came off the camera - it has only been given a screen stretch.

Care was taken to make sure when capturing the image that none of the stars or areas of the nebula were saturated.

Cheers
Geof Wingham

[gregbradley]

Very nice Geoff. The 2nd last one is very good indeed.

Greg.

[RickS]

Looks like you've got some great data, Geoff.