Seafood - IC4628

[cometcatcher]

C4628 The Prawn Nebula, lies 6000 light years distant. I started this on on April26. I would have more data but the scope fogged up right down to the main mirror. It was also difficult to process as the CLS can mess with the colour balance.

This is a composition of 151 subs with a Baader Semi-Apo filter and 140 subs with an Astronomik CLS over two nights for a total of 291 x 30 seconds. 8" F4 Newtonian, Pentax K-5. Astrobin ---> http://astrob.in/180183/0/

[RickS]

Nice colours as usual, Kevin, and a pretty image. I don't know how you do it with those tiny subs :thumbsup:

[Tony_]

Another great image Kevin - nothing wrong with 30sec subs.


Tony.

[Placidus]

A lovely image. Beautiful use of colour.

Best,
Mike

[Spookyer]

Good work. That is a lot of files to handle.

[nebulosity.]

Great stuff Kevin, the fainter stars maybe look a little muted but you have done a really good job displaying the background.

Cheers
Jo

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Rick. I don't know either but they seem to work if there's enough of them.



Thanks Tony.



Thanks Mike. The colour was tricky to do with the filters, but they do tent to "wake up" the camera's response to Ha.



Thanks Brett. Yes DSS chugs away for ages on so many files. I'm thinking of using a second computer for stacking if I keep up this madness.



Thanks Jo. I've noticed the nebula really pops out with fewer or muted stars and am still working on the right "look". I can see why Fred likes to get rid of stars completely! Never thought I'd say that lol.

[Stevec35]

Extremely nice rendition of this popular object Kevin!

Cheers

Steve

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Steve! I'm running out of popular objects. Must be soon time to chase the obscure ones. ;)

[LewisM]

Liking that!

Obscure..... hmmm, I don't think Eta Carinae has been imaged lately... :P

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Lewis. Haha! I should image Eta again just for you. :P Maybe I could shoot it a different way, like up-side-down! That will make it different. ;)

[Rex]

Nice Kevin. Plenty of faint stuff coming out in that one, well done mate.

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Rex. Trying to squeeze as much Ha out of this unmodified camera as I can is a challenge.

[jase]

For a traditional RGB image, the colours look very good Kevin. The image looks a little too soft for my liking. Not sure if this the data in general or the application of noise control. If you are using photoshop, you could try noise inverse masks to apply noise control to dim areas while leaving the brighter areas masked i.e. no or limited noise control applied. I did a tutorial for lightbuckets ages ago on the topic. You can view it here (http://www.lightbuckets.com/support_videos.php), scroll to the right to see NIM.

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Jase. I have noticed the softness and was wondering about it's origin, whether it's DSLR related or something I'm doing in the processing. I have noticed that in general CCD images are often sharper than DSLR (Bayer Matrix?) but that may just be better processing skills of the user. I will try masks when doing noise control next time to see if that helps. I just remembered I had dew problems that night also and used some of the dewey data which may be a contributing factor. Time will tell. I learn from every image.

[jase]

Could well be Kevin. Moisture will give that soft dreamy look. Perhaps your next step up is a OSC CCD?? Looks like you've got the basics under control to move to the next level.

[cometcatcher]

I've been thinking about it a lot and I think it's probably just over processed for the amount of data I have. Because my DSLR is not modified, I really should be using double figure hours to get enough Ha data. I think the processing short cuts I use to stretch micro data contribute to it being soft.

The problem is I really like my K-5. It's a self contained OSC camera that doesn't need tethering to anything. I enjoy my KISS astrophotography. And it's perfect for comets. A CCD, while no doubt getting better pics would introduce a complication that I'm not sure I'd enjoy without a full blown observatory.

An astro modified K-5 or similar may be the best step up at this point in time, at least when shooting Ha nebula.

[Camelopardalis]

Nice one Kevin :thumbup: love the detail in the Prawn!

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Dunk!

[Ross G]

Beautiful photo Kevin.

One of my favourites of your current photos.

Ross.

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Ross. I'm having a bit of a forced break at the moment due to rain. We need the rain though. Although it could do the right thing by raining in the daytime but clearing at night. :rolleyes: