M16 - another work in progress

[Stevec35]

Took the opportunity to get some Ha on M16 last night. The result looks pretty promising so I'm looking forward to getting some colour.

Cheers

Steve

http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/m16_STXL6303_RC14.htm

[multiweb]

That looks excellent Steve. Really cool. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

That's super sharp Steve. The AOX seems to be working well.

Greg.

[Regulus]

Beautiful detail and depth. well done Steve.

Trev

[Placidus]

Truly superb, Steve. A first class result.

[Stevec35]

Wow - that's high praise indeed. Thanks Mike and Trish.



Thanks Trev



Thanks Greg. The AO-X was certainly a worthwhile purchase.



Thanks Marc

[Paul Haese]

Funnily enough this is on my agenda in a month or so with the RC12 and AOX. That should be good to compare results Steve. I look forward to your final image.

[Stevec35]

Thanks Paul. I hope the final image lives up to the promise of the Ha.

[rustigsmed]

nice and crisp Steve, awesome detail, also looking forward to the final version.

cheers

[Bassnut]

Steve, very sharp (and smooth) but............background is high and... You know you cant get away with anything but perfection these days on M16.

[jase]

Great work Steve. :thumbsup: This is going to turn out a ripper final image I'm sure. My suggestion would be to collect some OIII to get the pinker hues coming through around the behind the pillars etc. The Ha data is a great, but lets face it, narrowband will always get you tight stars. The real test is getting the RGB to behave. Looking forward to seeing how it will turn out.

[Stevec35]

Thanks Jase. I'm definitely going to get OIII as well as RGB. A Ha:OIII:OIII with synthetic green would probably look good.



Thanks Fred. Not sure I'm with you about the background. I thought the dynamic range looked pretty good.



Thanks Rusty

[strongmanmike]

Looking at this image Steve and assuming you have done nothing to the stars in processing, it would appear that your past issues with the new RC were with the guiding and not the collimation?

Very nice Ha, looks only seeing limited to me, nice result

Mike

[Stevec35]

Thanks Mike. Only action on the stars was mild deconvolution. Guiding with the PME is certainly far superior to the old mount.

[strongmanmike]

Oh, I thought you had been having issues with the new scope on the new mount..? These stars look better than those you were getting pre AO guiding.

Mike

[Stevec35]

This was AO guided. I don't think I've ever had image quality problems related to the mount. Had an astigmatism problem once which turned out to be because the secondary had become rotated with respect to the primary. Still don't know why that happened. Sometimes focus has been an issue and then there's the seeing.

[Slawomir]

Great detail and nice depth Steve, well done. I am not sure if much can be done about the halos around bright stars, but that is just me being picky...

[Stevec35]

Thanks Slawomir. Maybe I could have done something about the halos but I didn't think they were particularly objectionable.

[Slawomir]

Agreed. Often trying to make every detail looking technically perfect destroys natural beauty of space images.

[RickS]

Looks sharp, Steve.

[Stevec35]

Yes well that's what I thought



Absolutely agree

[Leonardo70]

Really nice ... great !!

All the best,
Leo

[glend]

Looks great Steve. It is on my list to image during coming new moon period with my cold finger full spectrum DSLR.

[Stevec35]

Thanks guys. I've managed to collect a lot of nice SII data and am now waiting for the moon to get a bit smaller so I can do the OIII. I hope the colour lives up to the promise of the Ha.