House of the Dragons

[Retrograde]

Hi all - my rendition of the Fighting Dragons of Ara (including the Dragon's Egg NGC 6164/5).

This is probably my longest integration yet, about 7 hours in total.
Roughly 6 hours of that was through an Antlia 5nm Dual-Band filter presented as HOO and an hour of unfiltered OSC for the stars. Once again I used an AT65EDQ refractor which has a nice wide field and in-built flattener, (even if it's a bit slow at f6.5) and a ZWO 2600mc Pro. It was captured from my Sydney backyard under Bortle 7 skies.

I realise this is a very commonly imaged object but its only my second attempt at capturing it and my first using just an Ha filter + OSC was pretty underwhelming. It really does need the OIII for that contrast.

A higher res (2K) version can be found here at: Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/full/qcoy96/D/)

C & C welcome as always. :thumbsup:

Pete

[AdamJL]

Very nice, Pete!
Could do with either a bit more integration time or noise reduction, but it's lovely. Nice to see the Dragon Egg in there too.

[strongmanmike]

Overall a fabulous looking image Pete, probably the best framing for the area too, fitting in the magic dragon egg/purl is nice work and really sets the scene. One minor thing, I can't workout what the graininess is, ie. whether it is noise or actually stars suppressed in processing :question:

Either way great looking image :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Remarkable resolution from a 65mm scope.

The small amount of graininess, which I must say I did not notice at first, is probably the small aperture.

These small pixel cameras are really resolving at a level that only larger refractors could do not that long ago.

I like the colour scheme.

Greg.

[Retrograde]

Thanks Adam! I did use a small amount of (masked) NR but tried not to overdo it....



Thanks Mike!

Appreciate the honest feedback guys. I think the graininess might be caused by a flaw in my processing workflow for these types of images (perhaps when I add in the RGB stars but not 100% sure :question: ). I noticed it quite strongly in my Statue of Liberty image but put it down to the relatively short integration time in that image. I'll revisit the processing on this one & see if I can find out what's going on.




Thanks Greg!
I noticed the graininess with my Statue of Liberty image which I took with the MN190 so at this stage I think it might be down to processing. The little AT65EDQ is no Tak but it's a sharp little scope (at least when focuser-sag is eliminated ;) )

[Startrek]

Your kidding aren’t you , surely you used a 2600MM and filters
Seriously I don’t know how you extracted so much signal from the 2600MC and a dual band filter , maybe I should upgrade from my 7nm L Extreme to 5nm Antlier Golden filter ?
Looks like a Mono NB image
Well done !!
Martin

[Shiraz]

That's a really attractive image. You and others have commented on the graininess... might be able to smooth that out a bit, but I'd be careful to keep away from a "plastic" rendition. Cheers Ray

[Ryderscope]

Very nice work Pete with the small aperture and OSC camera. The benefit of your set up of course is the lovely wide field. A great composition that includes lots of detail and colour.

[marc4darkskies]

An aesthetically very pleasing image Pete! Good framing and pleasing colours without being overstated. Well done! :thumbsup:

[Nikolas]

That antlia gold filter seems to be a better filter than the L-Extreme

[Retrograde]

Thanks Martin that's very kind.

I push my data pretty hard during processing - sometimes too hard. Without having a permanent setup and being city bound most of the time I feel it's a struggle for every photon I capture :lol: so want to make the most of it.
Ideally I'd like to do more natural Ha/OIII/RGB blends but I need more access to dark skies for that. I'm still experimenting a bit about what can be achieved with my current setups.




Thanks Ray - I tried re-blending the RGB stars but it didn't make as big a difference as I thought so I'm now in the process of doing a full repro.
I don't use Topaz but I can still see that overdoing NR can give an unrealistic look to the image. :thumbsup:




Thanks Rodney!




Much appreciated Marcus!




I suspect it might be in some respects Nik (which is why I chose it) but how much better? Worth the extra cost? :question:

[Retrograde]

I've done a repro on this and managed to improve, but not eliminate, the graininess. This perhaps comes at the cost of a slight loss of detail.
Even after 6 hours of narrowband there was quite a lot of noise in the OIII in particular. It's something I'll have to pay more attention to going forward.

Link to the latest rev on AB here:Astrobin Latest rev (https://www.astrobin.com/full/qcoy96/D/) (and in the original post).

[Nikolas]

If it means no halos and extra contrast then maybe