Enhanced Lagoon Trifid HDR Widefield

[avandonk]

Large image 5MB

http://avandonkbl.bigblog.com.au/data/2/13839/image/LAGTRHDRSRRL2872020080406123047.jpg


Bert

[peter_4059]

Amazing detail Bert. What were the imaging details (scope, camera, exposure etc)?

Peter

[sheeny]

Another stunning image, Bert! Just love that nebulosity!

Al.

[h0ughy]

great shot Bert - lost count of the stars there using registar - got well over 85000 but somehow I think there are far more than that number in that shot

[avandonk]

Details
Canon 5DH, Canon 300mm F2.8L at f/2.8, Hutech LPR filter. ICNR ON.
This image is the result of using EasyHDR on four sets of exposures, consisting of 6X(1,2,4 and 8 minutes) at an ISO of 200.
I used ImagesPlus to convert from RAW to TIFF and correct for flats.
Then used RegiStar to produce a set of four aligned images of the same dimensions differing only in exposure
EasyHDR was then used to produce an LDR tiff and PhotoShop to adjust levels.
I have been playing with star and halo reduction in ImagesPlus with Richardson Lucy enhancement. The trick is to not overdo it.

Here is a version before 'enhancement' 2.8MB

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~cheekyfish/lagtr_hdr_L.jpg

As stars are basically point sources all our optics no matter how good have something called a 'point spread function' which radially spreads the original point source to something larger because of diffraction and aberrations and this can be mathematically deconvoluted by treating the original image as a simple gaussian. This is at best an approximation!


Bert

[leon]

Bert that is an awesome image, man there are some stars in that shot, just beautiful.

Leon

[avandonk]

Here is an animated GIF of before and after enhancement.

http://avandonkbl.bigblog.com.au/data/2/13839/image/lagtr300mm6292220080407155300.gif


Bert

[Ric]

Lovely widefield Bert, very sharp and detailed. The colours look spot on as well.

Cheers

[skwinty]

Excellent image Bert
Well worth the download!:thumbsup:

[Prickly]

Amazing image Bert - you zoom in and theres even more detail there.

A cropped view of the trifid or lagoon region blown up would look great even by itself.

Wow!

[avandonk]

Yes all I am pushing what I have to its almost absolute limits. I put up a 5MB image because even at this size the image looks nowhere near as good as the original TIFF or maximum quality JPG. If you look carefully on the web most images turn to jpg dross even with minor magnification even though the original image was very good. It could be because people are scared of their copyright. I personally don't, as I do this for fun not profit. The explosion of high quality images on this site and others is a testament to this philosophy.

Bert

[Prickly]

Hi Bert,

I agree with your philosophy - it should all be for fun. If I had a website I would certainly have given the full 6MP image too. Its a bit hard getting it down to 200Kb for posting on here, but you can understand the need for this I guess.

Cheers
David