M45 - The Seven Sisters

[cwjames]

Hi All,

Had another session at Golden Grove, a AGWA viewing site, last night and shot this picture of M45.

Chris

[cwjames]

Hi All,

After some feedback from Dave, zipdrive, who was at Goldengrove with me, I have reprocessed the M45 to bring out more detail.


http://cwjames.bigpondhosting.com/goldengrove20080111/m45-1-processed-p2 copy_std.jpg


http://cwjames.bigpondhosting.com/goldengrove20080111/index.htm

[peter_4059]

Chris,

Nice wispy blue nebulosity, I must give this object a try. What equipment did you use?

Goldern Grove is where I first caught the astronomy bug while visiting Perth many years ago. Saw Saturn and the Jewel Box and was hooked.

Peter.

[cwjames]

Hi Peter,

Sorry I am new to this posting, I should have included that info in my orginal posting.

Equipment is 20D at prime focus on a Skywatcher ED80 piggy backed on a LX200R. I either put the camera on the LX200R or ED80 depending on the FOV I require and guide on the other.

I have been to Golden Grove years ago, but have been there quite a few times in the last few months learning this Astrophotoghrapy skill. Long way to go yet, I only purchased my scope twelve months ago after seeing Dave (zipdrive) doing Astrophotograhy, he got me hooked.

Se Ya
Chris

[edwardsdj]

Great image. The reprocessed image really brings out the beautiful, faint nebulosity.

[cwjames]

Hi All,

I had a chance to re-process the shot I took of the Seven Sisters back in January, now that I have learnt a few more processing tricks.


http://www.cwjames.info/astro/gallery/starcluster/starcluster-001.php

This image still pleases me, I guess because I orginaly targeted M45 as my aquistion skills where low. However I was really supprised and pleased at what I saw throu the camera. I had never seen the sisters like this before.

I had some amp glow in the bottom right hand side of the image, which I have now removed.

Keeping fingers crossed for clear weather for the next couple of weekends so we can go and get some more data.

Thanks for looking.

Chris
Thank

[Alchemy]

go chris.... its improved, its a big learn all the processing stuff, keep at it try eta carinae now perhaps as its a fairly bright target.

cheers clive.

[Ric]

Very nice Chris, the surrounding nebulosity looks wonderful.

Cheers.

[jase]

Good effort Chris. When I stretch your data hard, I can see some wisps of nebulosity around Merope and Maia - this is rewarding. As Clive indicates, try hitting a brighter target to get some more hours under your belt. M45 can be a tricky target to acquire and process well. You need a combination of long exposures to bring out the nebulosity extensions along with short exposures to manage star colours. A little masking is usually required. Two other pointers, go easy on sharpening and watch your histograms. Keep at it.

[cwjames]

Hi All,

Thanks for your comments.

I can see, looking at other images of M45, that the colour saturation was too high and the grey scale streching was too low. So I have changed accordanly and re-posted at the url below.

http://www.cwjames.info/astro/gallery/starcluster/starcluster-001.php

I may re-stack the raw images to try out "Photoshop FITS Liberator" plugin. Re doing the greyscale stretching with the "PhotoshopFITS Liberator", saving the stacked image out of DeepSky Stacker as a FITS file for PhotoShop to process with the above plugin. More stuff to learn ! Will watch the sharpenning this time too !

Thanks Again for the comments

Chris

[cwjames]

Hi All,

Just a quick post to say thanks for all your comments.

Your feedback has enabled me to get this image to a point were I am happy with it, given the source data I collected on the night !

http://www.cwjames.info/astro/gallery/starcluster/starcluster-001.php

The second link below is a animated gif file showing the star names.

http://www.cwjames.info/astro/gallery/starcluster/starcluster-001-gif.php

Thanks again for your help !

Chris