M42 with Achromat in Narrowband

[avandonk]

Had a bit of time to collect some data with the 150mm achromat.

Camera Canon 5DH. 150mm diameter f/4.5 SkyWatcher Achro.

HA 3x4min ISO500
O3 3x4min ISO500
HB 1x4min ISO500 cloud arrived!

Fudged a longer exposure by summing the HA and O3 and made hdr images with the medians. That accounts for the noise.
Recombined with ImagesPlus

HA red + HB red to Red
O3 green to Green
O3 blue + HB blue to Blue

Large image 1.5MB
http://avandonkbl.bigblog.com.au/data/2/13839/image/M42104321830120071010104600.jpg

Looks very promising. With longer and more exposures should be a real goer.

Combining this with colour images from the 100ED and doing the lot in HDR should be very good!

Bert

[davidpretorius]

thanks for the detail bert............. i know not what it means, but i love the image

cant wait to try this one day

[Geoff45]

This is really promising Bert. I'm surprised nobody has thought about it before (as far as I know). Why spend $$$ on an apo, when a good achro and set of filters will do the same job?
Geoff

[avandonk]

I added the data to a previous colour HDR done with the 100ED.

Colour 100ED 650kB
http://avandonkbl.bigblog.com.au/data/2/13839/image/M42col837520071010130035.jpg

Combined colour and narrowband 1.0MB
http://avandonkbl.bigblog.com.au/data/2/13839/image/M42nb837620071010130035.jpg


Bert

[ballaratdragons]

That is great Bert.

The detail really stands out. Nice and crisp. It will be fantastic when the noise is sorted out.

The best part is, because of your method, there is no way of knowing the scope is an Achro :thumbsup:

[dugnsuz]

Great depth and detail there.
In the Combined colour and narrowband image, M42 looks cavernous.
Like a bowl off gas with the trapezium at the bottom of the bowl - very nice.
Doug

[Ric]

Lovely image Bert, the colours look great as is the detail.

A great image.

[h0ughy]

your certainly experimenting Bert - great to see and I am enjoying the results

[EzyStyles]

great shot Bert. Question about HDR, thats same as layered masking in PS2 right? if it is, personally i think doing layered masking in PS2 has more control over the area which you want to mask.

[avandonk]

Thanks all for your comments. I am just making the best out of my light polluted site. I figured if I have to use filters why not go all the way. The basic premise behind the method I am developing is to overcome the light pollution and still get 'natural' looking colour of very faint objects. As far as I am concerned every image is experimental as it gives me ideas what to try next.

This is a work in progress and I still have some details to work out. So far I cannot see why it wiil not succeed. I just thought I would put this image up so I could get some initial feedback.

All that faint noise you see outside the Orion nebula complex is very faint nebulae and dust. With longer and many exposures all the detail will be revealed (I hope).

Bert

[avandonk]

I used EasyHDR Eric. It only costs about $40 to get a registered version.

The trick is to produce identical fields using RegiStar of the different exposure stacks and then there is no need to use the very poor (for stars) alignment that comes with EasyHDR.

Bert

[g__day]

Wow that first shot is a great piccy - it needs slight processing to reveal just what a fine shot you did - with simple dark point reset (leveling the histogram in Photoshop CS2 - a 20 second exercise) your shot becomes:

[tornado33]

Great work Bert, when M42 reaches the meridian I can access it here and I should try that method too with the 300mm lens :)
Scott

[Astroman]

Nice work Bert, the outer neb is coming out nicely there, shame the noise was there, but these things are here to make us strive further.

g_day, a nice tweak.

[avandonk]

Thanks all for the comments. If you think about it the faint part of the image came from seven exposures for only four minutes each at an ISO of 500..

I can easily take narrowband images for 16 to 20 minutes or more. With a decent number to reduce noise all the faint stuff will come up.

Below is an image done last year with the 300mm lens at f/2.8. I hope to go deeper and clearer with the 100ED and 150mm achro.

I will also do it all again with the 300mm lens plus narrowband data.

large image 1.0MB
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~cheekyfish/oriongas.jpg

M42 is just a test,mainly to see if I could get 'natural' colour with narrowband data. The use of EasyHDR will also give me the full dynamic range of the target object visible in the one final image. Next on the list some supernova remnants in Vela when they are high enough.

As usual weather will dictate progress!

Bert

[Garyh]

Looks very promising Bert...colors look fairly close to what I expect from a normal RGB image. I agree that would be a great way to go deep where lots of LP is unavoidable. The achro seems to do a rather good job at it considering how bad a 150mm f/5 would be. Still shows some minor CA around the brighter stars which I don`t know why?
With many exposures you would end up with a very nice image but I reckon your ED100 would be the instrument of choice.
Look forwards to further refinements and updates!
cheers Gary

[avandonk]

Gary the single blue image was not in focus yet and then cloud came in. I used it anyway and that is why there is apparent CA.

The Skywatcher 150mm F5 achro is very well corrected for spherical aberration and with the Hutech FR gives an almost perfect flat field.
See here and below.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fmlee/hel_nb_acr_01_6.jpg


Bert

[g__day]

They are very nice shots - you raw materials are excellent - I am itching to see how you process them!

[xelasnave]

Looks really good to my eye Bert as do all your shots, congratualtions on a effort.
alex

[avandonk]

Here is last nights effort. Managed to get frames for 1min,4min and 8min for both HA and O3. Using the 150mm achromat.
I summed each of the two 8 min frames to get one 16 min for HA and O3.
Easyhdr used the two sets to give me two images for HA and O3.
Recombined in IP.

Large image 1.2MB
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fmlee/M42_NB_ACH.jpg

Not bad for an achromat.


Bert

[avandonk]

Ken inspired this.
The instrument is the hardware, the score is the data, but the final image is the song!

Bert