Lagoon and Trifid Nebula - Added Ha

[Paulyman]

Hi All,

I took this image of the Lagoon last year, it was my first image with only 1 hour of 60s shots. I managed to add 3 hours of Ha data over the weekend using 10 minute subs at ISO 800. I think I mucked up my focus with the new filter, man it is hard and requires much longer exposures to master.

I had a go at merging the RGB and Ha and think it has improved the image even though it has gone a fair bit softer thanks to the issues with focus.

Looking forward to getting to grips with NB imaging and improving the focus and sharpness.

Edit - This image was pre me doing flats.

[xelasnave]

Its looking great to my eye.
Alex

[raymo]

Good effort, but IMHO the sky needs to be somewhat darker to make the
nebulae jump out at you.
raymo

[RyanJones]

Nice Paul,

I agree it looks a little soft once you get the focus spot on it looks like you're on to a winner of a setup. How much you make an object pop seems pretty subjective with different astrophotographers. I personally like the softer more natural look yours has but it's horses for courses.

Good work :thumbsup:

[mental4astro]

Nice pic Paul,

I'd suggest to attempt to keep the billowing clouds of background Milky Way and emphasis the lanes of dark nebulosity. Kill the background glow just to bring out the nebulosity is to kill off the context of where these nebulae lie. Kill the background and you may as well have just focused the framing just on the individual nebulae. In going so widefield, the question is then WHY you bothered to do so if you do kill the background.


Alex.

[raymo]

I wasn't suggesting a black sky, just a bit darker.
raymo

[assbutt94]

Nice image!
I imagine using a narrowband filter makes focusing with a dslr a bit trickier but maybe take a long exposure of a nearby bright star centered with the mask on when you think its focused correctly just to give you nice bright and clear diffraction spikes.
Ive messed focus up a couple times now so i do this every time to confirm im happy.

Correct me if im wrong but tighter focus should help contrast a little and make the nebulae pop a bit better

[Paulyman]

Thanks for all the comments and criticisms all, much appreciated. Can’t wait to get some significant time on these objects in the coming months. Now that l have the basics up and running and can fairly reliably gather data it is time to start concentrating on some of the more subtle things mentioned in this thread such as composition.

Thermal noise has been a real pain and this rather hot extended summer probably hasn’t helped (or maybe it has I’m too inexperienced yet to know) my learning of good processing techniques? Hopefully the coming winter will reduce the issue somewhat.

Not sure if I’ll concentrate on nailing focus with the aha filter next clear skies or switch to my easier to work with unmodded camera for some galaxy action.