Jewel Box

[dugnsuz]

Hello all...

Jewel Box cluster in Crux.
Did this as a request from a northern hemisphere brother on astro-chat.uk, they're jealous of our amazing skies;)

20 x 30 sec unguided exposures @ iso800 (imaged under a bright moon:mad2:)
ED80, Skywatcher Synscan EQ5, Canon 40D

Stacked in ImagesPlus, processed in PS.

All the best

Doug:thumbsup:

[iceman]

Ripper, Doug. I've been waiting to image this for ages and haven't had a chance yet. It's one of my favourite open clusters!

Did you use fishing line or post-processing to add the spikes?

How cropped is the image?

[dugnsuz]

Nah Mike, Cheated with Noel's PS actions (Spikes on Fat Stars)!!
Cropped to remove stars with field curvature - so quite a bit!!!;)
Roll on the WO reducer.
Thanks for the comments.
Sure I could do heaps better than this - just a quick image to pass the time this one. Didn't even use ext power on camera! Moon was really bright too!
Doug:thumbsup:

ps...Liveview on 40D made focusing easy, brighter stars in cluster standing out well in LCD window.

[RB]

Gorgeous shot Doug!
Especially since the moon was up and you only did a quick capture.

The background looks good too considering the short subs.

[dugnsuz]

Thanks - managed to keep histogram unclipped, surprised as scope was bathed in moonlight for all 20 subs! I thought I was wasting my time!
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[EzyStyles]

very pretty doug, nice colours also.

[Dennis]

What a gorgeous image - well done Doug.

Cheers

Dennis

[RB]

The histogram is very slightly clipped in the shadows but not so bad that it yields a harsh background.
Ideally you want a curve that starts from zero on the left in all three channels.

[dugnsuz]

Cheers Andrew
Doug:thumbsup:

[Garyh]

Very nice Doug! great colors :thumbsup:
So many stars for 30sec subs.
Well done!

[leon]

Hmmm. Doug that is a beauty, I actually did that one two nights ago, it was so bloody hot, the noise was horrid, bring on the frosts I reckon,

Leon

[Tamtarn]

That's come up really good Doug. :thumbsup:

With the moon out and short unguided subs, imagine what the result will be under better conditions.

[Alchemy]

bold move under a bright moon.... paid off too.

[Ric]

Lovely image Doug, well captured.

The spikes set it very micely

Cheers

[dugnsuz]

Thanks mate,
You express youself 'micely' too:rofl:
Doug:thumbsup:

[Starkler]

Thats a beauty Doug!

I still say that AP cant match the visual beauty of clusters but this one comes closer than most :thumbsup:

[Ric]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Whoops

[coldspace]

You can see why they call it the Jewel Box, nice pretty shot.

Matt

[dugnsuz]

Thanks a lot Geoff, praise indeed!!
As an APer, I'm always striving for the WOW factor you visual guys get at the EP of large scopes.
Doug:thumbsup::thumbsup: