Narrowband Eagle

[Geoff45]

Here are two very different versions of M16:

The first is the regular Hubble Palette (R, G, B) --> (SII, Ha, OIII).
http://www.astrobin.com/212657/
Higher res here http://www.astrobin.com/full/212657/0/

The second uses a palette which gives natural colour (R, G, B) --> (Ha + SII, OIII, OIII +0.25*Ha)
http://www.astrobin.com/212658/
Higher res here http://www.astrobin.com/full/212658/0/

Telescope: 12.5" Plane Wave CDK
Camera: FLI Proline 16803
Mount: AP900
Exposure: 120 min Ha, 130min OIII, 120min SII
FOV: 49' x 49'
Processing: PixInsight. For the Hubble version I used Rick Stevenson's ColorMask script to desaturate the magenta stars and to push the colours.

Geoff

[Placidus]

Hi, Geoff,

The Hubble palette version becomes quite spectacular if you trim the black point a bit more. All our favourite features are there sharp and clear, including the ultra-faint stuff.

Great job.

[Somnium]

Great shot Geoff!

[Geoff45]

Thanks M&T. I'll give it a whirl



Thanks Aiden

[Geoff45]

Done! Yes, I originally hadn't used noise reduction on this one. It looked a bit grainy on the large scale version, so I quickly did a bit of NR and uploaded a new version, forgetting that NR usually gives that extra gap in front of the histogram foot. Thanks for the comment
Geoff

[codemonkey]

Nice work Geoff; looks much better to me with the latest adjustment to the darker areas.

[Paul Haese]

Great detail in the full res image Geoff. I like the Hubble palette. Maybe would be good to push the saturation just a little more and of course more data would smooth out the noise.

Still a nice image. Am liking the detail.

[RickS]

Nice work, Geoff. I think you could probably push the contrast and saturation further in the Hubble version? The "natural" colour version would really look good with some RGB stars.

Glad to hear the ColorMask script is coming in handy. Warren Keller is including it in his PI book.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Geoff45]

Thanks for comments Rick and Paul. I'll take them on board and have another go tomorrow.

[Warhen]

Yup, I love Rick's ColorMask script! It's discussed in Inside PixInsight twice, once with regard to narrowband specifically. BTW, thanks to all of you for your support of the book.