Mono First Light V2

[AdamJL]

Unhappy after my first edit (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=196707), PixInsight strangely crashed on me last night, which gave me the opportunity to start afresh....

I'm happier with this now. A slightly more traditional "SHO" palette, with about 50% Green removed via SNR.
Stars were added back in, but this time, not RGB stars. I under-stretched the StarXTerminator extraction of the star layers of each channel, recombined them, took the green out then layered the back onto the final image.

Cropped for a better presentation.

And here it is, and now I'm done (for now... never happy)

As always, a higher res version of each is presented here:
Starless (https://adamlawler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/Deep-Sky-Objects/i-89xZgWz/A) and My God, It's Sort of Full of Stars (https://adamlawler.smugmug.com/Astrophotography/Deep-Sky-Objects/i-Jh6gZGh/A).

[Startrek]

Adam,
Great first effort using Mono, impressive detail and colour
Wow big effort too , 7 hours or so. Looks like you’ve got a good handle on Mono imaging so far
Calibration details ?
Looking forward to seeing more images from you this year
Well done indeed !!

Unfortunately no Mono upgrade for me this year , I’ve poured a big chunk of money into a mount upgrade ( EQ8-R pro ) and a 10” f5 carbon fibre newt
Mono will have to wait until later this year or early next year ( provided the Minister of finance ( Misses ) doesn’t pull the plug on future budgets )

Cheers
Martin

[AdamJL]

Hi Martin

Thanks! Yes 7 hours but I was away for 4 nights, sadly only one night available to shoot.

Forgot the calibration data, thanks for the reminder. Only 40 flats per channel and 100 bias across all of them. These sensors calibrate fine without darks and dark flats. I was shooting at -10, but probably could have been anywhere between there and 0.

Looking forward to seeing what you can do with that EQ8-R as well and your new light bucket!

[JA]

You've got to love the fine detail in the gas and dust as well as the colour. Well done Adam :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[AdamJL]

Cheers JA. Maybe it was the dark skies, but I too was a bit shocked at the detail pulled in the gas and dust.

[Startrek]

In regard to calibration, I spent a month testing calibration methods on my 2600MC
Darks only ( waist of time , not require on the 2600 anyway )
Flats and Darks ( didn’t leave an even field )
Flats and Dark Flats ( didn’t leave an even field )
Flats and Bias ( provided the best even flat field )
I also found using a Master Bias didn’t work as well as taking new Bias for each target

I usually take 40 flats and 50 bias which has been working well over the past 4 months or so which has also been a lean time for clear nights . Late March is suppose to be the end of La Niña.... can’t wait to see the end of it
Cheers
Martin

[AdamJL]

Cheers Martin. I haven't noticed any issues yet re-using Bias frames taken a few months ago on 2600MC data, but they're so quick to capture it shouldn't be a problem to re-take if issues crop up!

[Andy01]

Nice one Adam, good start!
I prefer the starless one as the stars are so muted in the other one that may as well not be there. :D

[AdamJL]

Ha, you're not wrong, Andy!

I'll do another edit with those stars and not under-stretch them as much. Didn't realise star processing with narrowband would be so painful!