Dynamic duo

[Peter Ward]

Holy smokes....another M8!?

Unfortunately the new compressor could not fit the Sag triplet in the same field,
well at least in a photogenic manner, so I had to settle for this familiar "eye candy" paring.

The link is here (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery543.html) to the 2k version

It was all done and dusted on the same night...and I was very happy to close up the dome before midnight....
getting a bit nippy out there of late. :cold:

[gregbradley]

Looks wonderful. Love the pinpoint stars. Some nice resolution as well.

Greg.

[Startrek]

Nice pairing and the Star field is tremendous
Always enjoy gazing at your images, can’t beat quality precision optics mixed in with a kind atmosphere
Well done !!
Martin

[floyd_2]

Lovely shot mate. Both objects are really delicately handled and look fantastic. It was worth braving the cold for!

[Peter Ward]

Thanks for your kind remarks. That said, I'd mucked up the h-alpha blend
(a hazard of burning the midnight oil) and have now replaced the first iteration with a softer and more accurate colour, version.

While the NB set is AstroDon, the RGB exposures were through Baader's
which are causing slight halos on brighter stars. Unfortunately 50mm RGB AstroDons are unobtanium at present
...a hallmark of the times it seems :sadeyes:

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
what an amazing field of view to grab both nebulas in one frame.
That Astro-Physics AP155 EDF is a superb telescope.
It gives pin point stars across such a wide field.



It seems that adding Ha to the center of the Lagoon Nebula
drowns out the other colours - especially Blue
making the whole picture look Red.

Just RGB seems to give more interesting colours as per here:
https://www.adamblockphotos.com/m8-the-lagoon-nebula.html


Adding Ha to make a Ha RGB mix makes it more bland as per here:
https://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/Deep-Space-Objects/LHa_RHa_GB


I can't see any way out of it unless you did a pure RGB picture
and combined it with the original HaRGB pic and
used a mask for the center of the Lagoon to block out the HaRGB.
Then again that would be cheating so I suppose to reveal
the full colour picture you'd need to publish a pure RGB pic?



cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Ta. You've raised some valid points.

There certainly have been some discussions over the years over the "right"
shade of red for M8.

Salmon is clearly not it. The H-beta is in the core and should be magenta,
transitioning to pure h-alpha/red at the periphery.

My Ver 2.0 did not show that well.

Ver 3.0 now up at the same URL (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery543.html)....

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
That is certainly an improvement now.


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Glad you think so.

Sitting under these chilly-clouded skies, I had a Pixinsight
processing epiphany this morning and got to work...

I've seriously masked the stars to stop them dominating the scene.
The nebulosity is vivid but nuanced. The presence of photo-bombing asteroid
(near M20) is also now obvious.

I suspect this will be my new "nebula" work-flow from now on. :)

Same URL (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery543.html)

[alpal]

Hi Peter,

Very nice - another improvement.
I have saved previous versions so I can see the changes.
( I hope you don't mind?)

You have more blue showing all around the Trifid too.


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

No problemo.

[pkinchington]

Wonderful nebulosity!
Cheers Kanga

[JA]

You've done it again ... :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Peter Ward]

Ta.


In the words of Brittany "Opps" :D

[IanP]

My hat's off ...
impressive!

[Benjamin]

Wow. Lovely framing and beautifully processed. Very nice to see the relationship between m20 and m8, both the connecting Ha (?) and the colour.

[multiweb]

Missed that one. Like the last repro colourwise. Superb field. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Nikolas]

Very nice Peter whatever your processing epiphany was it worked!

[Shiraz]

Very classy image Peter. Smooth and detailed.