Fox Fur, Cone and Hubble

[Peter Ward]

Hello Group,

This one drove me spare.....Sydney's ever glowing light hub thew up gradients that made processing very difficult....hence I can't be sure of the colour fidelity.

Probably needs a re-shoot in darker skies.

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/images/foxneb3.jpg

STL11k, AP155 several hours of Ha, plus about an hour of colour.

Cheers
Peter

[theodog]

Not bad.... not bad at all.
I'm far from an expert and struggle with this colour balancing thing myself, but could I suggest a little more blue?

Well done.:)

[Peter Ward]

Jeff,

Yep...gave it a tweak with your suggestion. The blue data is a little thin and needs some more exposures.

Cheers
Peter

[leon]

I like it a lot, very crisp and clean, great shooting Peter.

Leon

[iceman]

Lovely image, Peter. A beautiful part of the sky, well captured.

[tornado33]

Nice how Hubbles Variable Nebula is sitting up there in the darkness, well composed to get that all in like that.
Yes gradients are a hassle, particularily when they are coloured gradients, such as yellow glow from high pressure sodium lights, that makes trying to get an even neutral field difficult. I envy those at dark sites who only have natural airglow to worry about :)

[edwardsdj]

I'm amazed at the results people like yourself can get from light polluted sites.

An amazing image!

[Peter Ward]

Doug,

Thanks, but anyone with a stable, accurate mount and CCD should be able to do the same. After All I only used a 6" telescope!

I've had discussions several times in the past on why *very deep* images are possible from light polluted skies, suffice to say it centers around signal and noise.

For example, DSLR's can provide simply wonderful imagery but are often limited by noise, dynamic range and QE. I own a number of DSLR's but I could not reproduce this shot with say, my Canon 5D as it would hit a sky fog limit long before I could extract any useful signal.

Under dark skies the situation is very different. I am often amazed how well DSLR's perform, and the ease with which they can be used....as they say, horses for courses :)

[Ric]

Hi Peter, a very enjoyable image of a great area of the sky. The depth of the detail in the nebula looks great as well.

Cheers

[h0ughy]

that is a wonderful shot Peter - but i am struggling to see the fox in this image ;-)

[Alchemy]

Ah but it wasnt a cheap one....

nice image, great depth of Ha that you just would never get with anything other than a ccd camera, just let down a bit by the jpg compression, i imagine the original to be more impressive.

its always nice to see quality imaging.

[Dietmar]

whow Peter, that is coool!

[Garyh]

Nice Ha data of this neb! Peter :thumbsup: but like you say more color data shall make it a pearler!!
you shall have to go on a trip to the country to dark skies!
cheers Gary

[Peter Ward]

Thanks guys, just as a small note, the image is a progressive .jpeg, hence depending on your internet speed, will load coarsely, then with increasing resolution. There should be few .jpeg artifacts once fully downloaded.

Yep..needs more colour data but I'm finding these overcast/late afternoon thunderstorm gradients *really* hard to work around :)

[jase]

You've highlighted the deficiencies Peter, more chrominance data etc. Still a pleasing result. Well done.

[glenc]

Very impressive shot, thanks Peter.