Orion - Barnard's Loop

[dugnsuz]

Hello all...
Been very quite recently (read Lazy!!)
Back into it last night.

Orion area with my 50mm f1.8 plastic fantastic Canon lens.

Modded 40D
Canon 50mm f1.8 @ f4
iso1600, 11x600sec and 10x30sec mask
ICNR, no flats - fair bit of vignetting as a result, retry soon maybe...tried to crop it out in 2nd pic!
EQ5 GoTo mount
Autoguided with PHD
Images Plus and PS.

High Res...
http://s327.photobucket.com/albums/k461/doug-robertson/?action=view&current=11a.jpg

Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Nice one Dougie

[renormalised]

Great shot Doug... a loopdey loop, a horse, a flame, two big white blobs and Brunhilde up near the top:P:D

[CoolhandJo]

Doug, viewed the high res - WOW - amazing star field! Nice enough contrast in the diffrent colours to get a good overall visual image of the region!

[Craig_L]

Great shot Doug. Love the witch (Brunnhilde) in the first one as well.

Craig

[dugnsuz]

Cheers all - looks overcooked to me on re-inspection.
I'll do some flats and have another go soon.

Craig - yeah, the old bag's in there too!!!

[leon]

Wow Doug now for the equipment you used, it is a mighty result, well done mate, had wondered what had happened to you of late.

leon

[h0ughy]

n ice shot, i wished i could be doing this..... darn weather, wife and life LOL. It is an excellent shot to drive the passion to do more astro work Doug

[pvelez]

A cracker!

Pete

[lesbehrens]

very cool. first time i have seen all of these i one picture.

[AlexN]

Niiiiice!

[Ric]

Wonderful work Doug, very fine imaging indeed.

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

An excellent study of Orion.
You don't realize how big old Witchy Poo is until you see her in relation to the entire constellation.

[RobF]

What an amazing roadmap for the whole area....!

[Hagar]

Nice image Doug. Love the wide field. Makes Orion neb look fairly small and insignificant. May be a little heavy on the processing.

Nice interesting shot with lots to look at.

[Garyh]

Good one Doug!
Looks very nice and deep as well.
Great for a hours worth and the loop stands out beautifully!
cheers Gary

[multiweb]

Awesome widefield - Top shot.:thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

yep thought it was good enough to now have as my desktop background on the 81cm monitor!

[dugnsuz]

Thankyou David:)

[atalas]

Wonderful!

[bluescope]

Looks great Doug ... like the area above ic434 !

:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Very nice. I love these widefield lens images. Amazing how much gas is around Orion.

Can I make a few suggestions?

1. Background colours need to be balanced as I can see some green in the background and a bit of your gradient still there. Easiest way is Gradient Xterminator with balance background colours checked or use levels and curves. Open levels and the histogram showing all colour channels. You'll probably see a gap to the right before the histogram starts on both the red and green channels. That is where that background noise lies. Move the right hand slider (the black point) over to the left until it is just at the start of the histogram. You can also do this with curves with an inverted S type shape. You can also click on the image area where the noise is and watch the curves box. Photoshop will flash a diamond on the position on the curve of the colour you just clicked on. Now you know which part of the curve to adjust to accentuate/deemphasise different coloured parts of the image.

2. There are some blown highlights in the image. Try shadows/highlights.
Set highlights slider to 5 then move the shadows slider across. If you don't give it some highlights then the shadows slider won't do anything. It will reduce some of those blown out bright parts. The other 2 sliders under shadows can then be used to get it just right.

Or you could lasso the bright bits and use curves. The blown out bits will be right at the top of the curve so click a couple of spots above and below the top part of the curve and then drag it down in the centre so only the top 1/5th or less of the curve drags down and this should have a similar effect.

Greg.

[dugnsuz]

Thanks for the tips Greg:thumbsup:
I noticed the green hue in the thumbnails too.
I've had a repro attempt and used a flat frame too - looks flatter, will post soon.
Doug:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[leon]

Hey Doug did you get all of that, :whistle: now go for it man, and we expect a master piece.;) keep at it mate.

Leon :thumbsup:

[Matty P]

Very very nice Doug. Looks great. :)

:thumbsup:

[tornado33]

Excellent work indeed, Im just looking at the exposure times, 600 secs @ISO1600, that must be a very dark sky there, I get fogged out if I go 600 secs @ISO800.
Cheers, Scott

[Lester]

Very nice picture of this seldom imaged object.

[RB]

Very nice work Doug.

:thumbsup:

[prokyon]

Hi Doug,

great shot!
I did the same with the Canon 50 f/1.4 and the 350d mod.

http://www.prokyon.startime.at/Bilder/Barnards_Loop_full.jpg

You got better contrast and colors.

cheers

werner

[Wavytone]

... I shot Barnards loop about on Ektachrome slide film from Mt Bowen on a very clear night about 1980, much wider field though.

[dugnsuz]

Ooops!! Neglected to say I used a Hutech LPS2 Filter on the lens:whistle:
Cheers all for the kind comments - I've been very quiet of late...relocating!
HEQ5/New computer coming soon and slightly darker sky!!;)
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup: