Eta - Ripper Rita! (redone - again...)

[Omaroo]

A quick few frames from last night - before that blasted moon made itself seen.

Tak FS-102, 350d 5 frames @ISO800, 2 minutes per.

Sorry about the noise, it happened when I downsized. :(

EDIT: A new repro - with star halos reduced a little and CA also reduced. Amazing how much CA exists at pixel level - even from a top APO. I've done a colour replacement for each star affected (individually) by hand, and I think that the second version is better. I've also adjusted the crop a little to include the lower nebulosity. Cropping is about 90% over the originals' 80%.

Pic 1) Original

Pic 2) Reproduction

[multiweb]

Great shot Chris :thumbsup: How do you guys get all these blue colors in it? All I get is tints of pink and reds? :shrug:

[Omaroo]

Thanks Marc

I think that this is one of the reasons I haven't had my camera modded for Ha yet. I personally think that they create images that are too red. I like to see colour variation, even it may be slightly false.

[multiweb]

Got to work out a way to increase blues with my QHY8. Maybe a blue filter and binning 2x2. I like blues. I want blues. :sadeyes:

[TrevorW]

Nice one Chris !!

[Omaroo]

Cheers Trevor :)

[kinetic]

That is so beautiful to look at Chris when I do a full screen
view on my CRT monitor.....lovely colours!
I love the image scale of your cam/ Tak combination too.

Steve

[Omaroo]

Thanks so much Steve - it's appreciated! :)

[astronut]

It's so good I placed it onto the Homepage of the M.A.S website, well done Chris!!:thumbsup:

[Omaroo]

LOL! Thanks John :)

[spearo]

Well done Chris!
nice crisp details!
frank

[Omaroo]

Thank you Frank! :)

[Bloodbean]

There's a great range of colours in that pic Chris, looks fantastic! May I ask what software you used for stacking/processing?

Troy

[Omaroo]

Thanks Troy :)

I only use Photoshop CS3.

I use the "Load Files into Stack" script to load all frames into a "Smart Object". I then edit the object which splits it up back into individual layers. I then place guides in the center of a prominent star at 200% and individually move each layer around such that the same star is intersected in that layer using the Move tool. I then recombine all selected layers back into a Smart Object. This has given me far better results than relying on the script trying to align frames by itself.

I then go to the Layers menu and select Smart Objects/Stck Mode and use "Mean". Voila - a stacked image is created. Flatten this image and then do normal level adjustments, etc.

[browndog]

That is a nice shot. :thumbsup:
Your TAK can certainly produce some great images and it is nicely processed. I agree with you that it is a bit noisy - would more subs help to reduce this noise?

[Omaroo]

Thanks Ian. Yes, I think that the more subs you take the better. In the case of this image it's made up up of very few frames.

I also think that if I'd bothered to take a few darks and a flat or two it'd be better too - but i didn't. I just ran out of time and bed was looking awfully comfy. :lol:

[Hagar]

Chris, Very nice image. The DSLR really takes some beating. The Canon CMOS seems to be very well set up in their cameras.
Nice one Mate.

Marc, The blues equate to the sensitivity of the CMOS to OIII. The only way to capture the blue/green detail with the QHY8 is to use an OIII filter and to blend the resulting images with PS. The Ha band totally overpowers the OIII band when imaging with a one shot camera.

[Octane]

Chris,

That's beautiful. Interstellar fairy-dusted forest berry ice cream. Yum.

Regards,
Humayun

[RobF]

God bless you Chris - your wise words MAY just tame the evil voice in my head!
("come to the dark side Robert - MOD your new(ish) 450D......, come to the dark side.......")

Great Eta too!

[strongmanmike]

AH! a man after my own heart :thumbsup:

Nice job Chris. Did you remove blue halos from around some of the stars perhaps? There seems to be silver halos around some of the brighter stars and star clusters..?

Mike

[Omaroo]

Thanks guys :)

Mike - not much gets past you, eh? :doh:

Yep - I'm re-doing it again tomorrown, and being more careful this time. I was trying out the threshold tecnique in Photoshop and probably went overboard a little.

[strongmanmike]

Yee hee! a repro :2thumbs:

[jjjnettie]

What was the bit in the middle?

Very nice piccy!:thumbsup:

[Omaroo]

Done Mike. Individual stars were hand edited. What fun! :P

Pic is up alongside original, and is cropped slightly different from the orig - still only about 80%.

[Omaroo]

Thanks Jeanette :)

The bit in the iddle was a description of how I stack images using Photoshop rather than Registax or any of the other stacking programs. Photoshop will do much of what the other dedicated astro image editors will do, only it's like driving a manual car rather than an auto.

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes, that's a bit better :)

Mike

[Omaroo]

LOL! It's hard work Mike! Lots to learn still.... :thumbsup: