Tarantula First try from 11th Jan

[netwolf]

Hi All,

I did this after Orion on Friday night. 10x60sec subs using 10x60 darks. Followed Eric's guide again and then used Noel's PS action tools to get rid of some Light pollution.

I was not thinking of posting this but i sent it to Kal to have a look and he did some quick processing on it and showed me that there was data in there to be brought out. I have also attached the DSS stacked and dark subtracted frame.
Both have been cropped down.

Regards
Fahim

[edwardsdj]

A nice image Fahim. Particularly for your first attempt :)

The Tarantula is such a beautiful object.

[leon]

For a first go you should be happy with that, well done, keep em coming.

Leon

[browndog]

Hi Fahim - That is a really nice image for a first up attempt at the Tarantula.
For only 60sec subs you have got a fair bit of data. :thumbsup:

Can you indicate what scope you used to capture this image?

As an idea you may want to try for longer exposure times and more of them to improve the amount of signal that you capture? Have you tried autoguiding yet?

[netwolf]

Ian, the scope is a Borg 100ED on the G-11 mount. I think i will need to guide to get longer scopes. I thought i had drift aligned accurately enough this time but still got ecliptical stars at 60sec. My guess is that perhaps guiding will helpd me go longer. I have the Borg 76ED and guide rings all ready to go, just need the adapter to connect to my st-4 port.

Regards
Fahim

[Kal]

Fahim, it is a pretty good image, but I think you have overexposed it a bit and have blown out some of the nice details at the core of the tarantula.

Here is a crop of how I would have presented it :)

[netwolf]

Andrew, the core was sacrificed to bring out more of the nebulosity. If i had done some shorter exposures i could have layered them and kept both features. I think i will see if i can cheat and layer the same image together.

[rat156]

Hi Fahim,

Nice, but the colour is way off.

Peter Ward has just posted a note on this very subject.

For a somewhat incredible picture taken by an amateur in Aus see http://www.southern-astro.com.au/gallery.php?PhotoID=8

Cheers
Stuart

[Kal]

Hi Stuart,

I read the post by Peter Ward, and definately the color balance is not right. I had a play around with Fahims image some more, and while while I don't really know what I'm doing, the result definately appears an improvement.

[monoxide]

nice one Fahim.

with an unmodded dlsr you wont get a whole lot of anything but green from the tarantula unless you can do some pretty long subs, even then i think you'd have to butcher it to get the colour 'right'

heres one i took a while ago, looks almost identical :thumbsup: http://img181.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tarantulangc2070bgdz6. jpg

[netwolf]

Tj/Stuart, yes with umodded color is difficult to get right on all objects. But i believe some processing can be done to bring it out a bit better. But i am still learning the ropes. So i appreciate the constructive critique, this is exactly what i need. I saw the thread with Peter's comments on the subject and the information on white balancing. I have tried this but it does not seem to work for me. Or perhaps i am not doing it right. Can anyone explain how i can do this in PS/Gimp or similar?

Regards
Fahim

[acropolite]

A fine first effort Fahim, keep em coming. I'd be digging in to Eric's (Ezystyles) photoshop tutorial (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=26819) and seeing if more detail can be teased out.

[Tamtarn]

The only problem with making Tarantula red is the addition of a heap of red noise which spoils the image.

David