Kaus Australis & M54

[multiweb]

Another bright star from Astrofest to add to my collection. One I used as a stopover before going to find the faint tail of corona australis as it was still coming up. 15x5min with the FSQ106N/QHY5 on G11. Bucket loads of stars in that shot. It's a bit out of the main milkyway lane but still suprisingly dense enough that you can hardly see the background sky, although it is devoid of any nebulosity so pretty clear area of the sky.

[1:1 - 10MB (www.astropic.net/astro/KausAustralia_FSQ106N_fff.jpg)]
[HD - 4.4MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/KausAustralia_FSQ106N_HD.jpg)]

Processed in CCD Stack, Registered with Prometheus and color balanced/levelled in Goodlook 64, finished off saturation in Photoshop.

Posted a 1:1 crop of the central area as the thumbnail. Too many stars to fit under 200kb.
Enjoy the view. Still going through all the data I've got. :thumbsup:

Added M54 which apparently is a cluster that's not in our milky way. So unlike the previous star shot, although in the same part of the sky, this one is way way back beyond the starry background.

[1:1 - 10MB (www.astropic.net/astro/M54_FSQ106N_fff.jpg)]
[HD - 4.2MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/M54_FSQ106N_HD.jpg)]

[Retrograde]

Very nice Marc. So many tiny pinpoint stars (and one not so tiny one) in this field.
Did you add the spikes on Kaus Australis in processing? Either way the spikes make it really pop.

[omegacrux]

Very nice !

David

[Shano592]

Nothing like a dense starfield like this one to remind you just how insignificant a speck you really are!

Excellent image, Marc. I love the detail. It is seriously packed in there!

[multiweb]

Thanks guys. :thumbsup: Yeah that's a load of stars. I used StarSpikes Pro, a Photoshop plugin, to add the spikes on the bright stars. I like them like that. Otherwise they look a little boring. I do the same on my C11 shots sometimes :)

[Atmos]

A lot of stars? Don't know what you're talking about! :P Another very nice image Marc.
That GC is very small!

[atalas]

Billions & Billions :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

A beautiful star field

Greg.

[Placidus]

Gives a very powerful feeling of how many, and how far away, the background stars are, and the immense void between. Very sharply resolved.

[multiweb]

Thanks Colin. :thumbsup: Yeah it's really hard to resolve too. I only got some stars on the outside, blurry in the core.

Thanks Louie. :thumbsup:

Thanks Greg. :thumbsup:


Thanks Mike. :thumbsup: I might try a fake 3D effect see how that looks.

[RickS]

More great images, Marc! You must have been working hard while we were tossing back beers :lol:



Perhaps add some big hair? ;)

[multiweb]

Thanks mate. :thumbsup: My imaging rig is crownie tolerant. Let's leave it at that. :)



You evil man ... :cool3:

[topheart]

Starpendous images Marc!
Tim

[multiweb]

Thanks a lot Tim. :thumbsup:

[SkyViking]

Very nice pics Marc, there is nothing quite like a bright star - too often we tend to overlook them I think :)