Fighting Dragons of Ara

[RyanJones]

Hi all,

After not a lot of clear skies for a while I took advantage of 3 reasonable nights last week. My target was Running Chicken but instead of doing a meridian flip just after midnight I decided to swap targets and get some time on the Dragons of Ara. In the end after 3 nights I had more data on the dragons than the chicken so I decided to process it first. Despite using my STC duo filter there was still a significant amount of sky glow in the subs. The joys of living in Bortle 8 skies.....

Anyway, I’m reasonably happy with the result so here it is.

170x180sec subs @ gain 240
ZWO 071mc @ -10c
STC Duo Filter
200mm f/4 Newtonian
HEQ5 pro guided @ <0.6 arc seconds
ZWO ASIair guide, capture and auto focus

Astrobin link : https://cdn.astrobin.com/images/42086/2021/7fae5fbd-ae67-4900-ac12-ee6583ad3557.jpeg

Thanks for looking

Rysn

[Nikolas]

Very moody Dragon there mate, I just wish we had clearer skies and not on a worknight

[Wilsil]

That is a great image Ryan.

A question though. I notice you are using a 200mm f/4 Newtonian on your HEQ5 mount.
Isn't it too heavy?

[RyanJones]

Thank you Nik and Wilco,

Nik - I hear your pain mate. The clouds have been terrible and the only clear nights we’ve had have been week days. Thank god the universe isn’t going anywhere......

Wilco - Short answer is YES. Not by pure weight load. The bearings in the mount could hold a small car but for astrophotography it’s far too heavy. I’ve spent countless hours refining both the scope and the mount to get it to do what it does. There’s currently 10kg almost to the dot riding on it at the moment. I have plans to reduce more weight and better moment of inertia but the other night she was guiding at 0.34 so I can’t complain too much.

Cheers

Ryan

[Startrek]

Ryan
Looks like you took advantage of some long awaited clear nights
Great effort on a difficult target
Love the colours too
Well done !!
My only observation is your focus maybe a tad out ( the obvious signs of slight in or out focus in my images using my newts is fatter diffraction spikes ) or maybe it was atmospheric conditions ?
Still a great image
Martin

[RyanJones]

Thank you Martin,

The fatness of my defraction spikes is sadly my own doing. I had looked after the star quality for most of my processing but something I did late in the piece bloated my highlights. I’ll work back though it at some point and find where but it was getting late when I finished. Its also been suggested by a friend to try and balance in a little more red into my stars so I’ll try that too. Thank you for your input. It’s much appreciated.

Cheers

Ryan

[Robert_T]

Great stuff Ryan. Lovely depth. I'm inspired to give this a go as well. Not a target I've tried before.

[RyanJones]

Thank you Robert,

This object is the object that inspired me to image. One of the salesman where I bought my mount had done it and showed me. I look forward to seeing your rendition.

Cheers

Ryan

[Karlz]

Excellent image there Ryan, how did you process it in Photoshop to get the colouring?

[JA]

Good Stuff Ryan :thumbsup:
The subject and the colour scheme is very Lord of the Rings / Battle of Helm's Deep... :fight::fight::fight:

Best
JA

[RyanJones]

Thank you Karl.

I used Astro pixel processor to do a Ha and O3 extraction then reassembled it as HOO before taking it to PS for processing. I have in the past just fine the Ha and O3 extractions in APP and then colour mapped it myself in PS by assigning the Ha to the red channel and O3 to blue and green then used selective colour to change the red to yellow but it does hurt the data. Reassembling it with the software ( APP ) that split it seems to work better.

Cheers

Ryan

[RyanJones]

Thank you JA,

I’ve done a few images with this “ moody “ pallet as Nik described it. To be honest initially it wasn’t intentional but it turns out that way whilst dealing with subduing my light pollution and I quite like it. I feel it has quite a natural tone despite using an unnatural colour assignment.

Cheers

Ryan

[AdamJL]

Oh I like this, definitely has a dark mood to it! This is like a fantasy drawing. Lovely :)

[RyanJones]

Thank you Adam