First shot after some time off. Milky Way core.

[Crushellon]

Got an NEQ6 a couple of days before I went away for 5 weeks. This is my first attempt at using it. Couldn't get it tracking well enough to take shots with the 8" reflector but was plenty good enough to do 120 seconds with a 50mm lens.

Canon 550D, 50mm f1.8 @ f4.5 1600iso

40 x 120sec lights
15 x darks
101 x bias

[Atmos]

The data looks really good Tim! I have a feeling that you have debayered it incorrectly however; red and blue channels being the wrong way around. In the centre of the field is the Lagoon nebula, this should be more of a reddish purple, not blue :)

[Crushellon]

Ha! I'll have to look into that. I wasn't overly happy with the shot because I couldn't get the colour right... That might be why 😊

[Stonius]

I'd be interested to see the result from your tweaking the debayering. Pls post, it's a lovely image. I often thing the naked eye view of the galactic core is one of the best views in astronomy. :-)

[Atmos]

:thumbsup:

[Crushellon]

So I fixed it... wasn't the debayer, just bad processing.

hi rez: http://www.astrobin.com/full/253447/0/

[Decimus]

An absolutely breathtaking image, Tim! Love it.

Cheers,
Richard

[Atmos]

Looking a lot better Tim! It looks like it still has a bit of a blue cast to it. In the darker areas on the bottom it looks a bit blue, the Lagoon is still blue (it is very red) but the Triffid looks nice :)
Fantastic field with M16&17 on the upper left! Very nicely resolved!

[Crushellon]

Yeh, I'm not sure where the colour is coming from I've never had to correct colours before. I debayered a terrestrial photo to make sure it was right and it came out fine but for some reason it thinks Lagoon is blue in the middle. Even when I was testing alignment on my new reflector the shots of it came out blue (single shot attached). This will all change now anyway seeing as I removed the IR filter last night.

[Cimitar]

Hi Tim, I use a Canon 600D and my result on the Lagoon was also blue (ish). I had to artificially introduce red/pink into my final image to generate a more pleasing result. Generally speaking I've noticed my camera tends to produce accurate colours on most objects (but not all). I've tried both raw (CR2-TIF conversion) and debayering and the end colour result is typically the same regardless.

Great photo btw! :thumbsup:

Cheers, Evan

[renormalised]

The reason why your shots have that blueish tinge to them is because your camera isn't sensitive to Ha light. Your camera isn't modded, am I correct? If it had the IR cutoff filter in the camera removed, you'd get nice red tones in your nebs. You'd also still get the blues as well, from the reflection nebs in the pics. Most cameras that are unmodded will take piccies like that, with most of the best response being in the blue end and only relatively weak red, if any at all. It depends on the make of your camera and the chip it uses as to what the results will look like. I've seen pics that actually look aqua/green/turquoise in the nebs, taken with unmodded cameras.