NGC 2899 Tiny little Planetary

[Flugel88]

Captured this one about 3 weeks ago only just got around to processing.

Its very small given my f4 1.37" per pixel i didn't expect much but im pretty happy with the result.:)

Seeing was poor best frame being 4.1 FWHM worst 4.9 FWHM

3x600sec RGB
7x420sec Lum

Atik 383L, Meade sn-8, Eq8 Guided
Processed in CCD Stack and PS

[cometcatcher]

Nice one Michael, especially given it's size.

[Aussie_Dave]

I'd be happy with that Michael, great. I still haven't gotten to this stage of AP yet but looking forward to starting on DSO with what I've seen from members here.

How do you get the colours of the stars? Is that from the long 600sec exposures?

[Flugel88]

Thanks Dave :D
To achieve the star colours for my images i just increase the Vibrance with photoshop.
I probably should use some kind of masking when doing this to select only the larger stars of the image.
Because when i increase the vibrancy of the whole image or all stars selected the faint small stars turn deep red or deep blue giving them a silly artificial look.

[raymo]

The smaller version looks great Michael, but the guiding looks to be
off in the close up, and obviously, the vibrancy needs to be decreased.
raymo

[Flugel88]

Thanks for the honest feedback Raymo ;)

True there are tracking or stacking errors in there and wasn't until i zoomed and cropped the image that i realized how bad it was.
Not sure what went wrong there.:shrug:

Cant wait to give it a another go next time with more subs.

[raymo]

Can I suggest that you increase the saturation rather than the vibrancy;
increasing the saturation will obviously strengthen the colours, but will not give you the "silly" colours, as you put it.
raymo

[rustigsmed]

Hi Michael,

I like this a lot. great capture.
if using photoshop, go select-> colour range -> then use drop down box and select highlights :thumbsup: then you can up the saturation / vibrancy of the stars

cheers

[Flugel88]

I've never played with the colour range options before.
Will be a useful method for a quick layer mask.

My Photoshop skills have come along way but I'm reminded when i get helpful tips from people like you that I am still a novice.:violin:

Thanks for the Tip Russell