Not sure about this !

[bluescope]

A calm, clear night to start out last night so time to do some imaging .... whilst waiting for M8 to rise I doodled with a couple of other objects that I may post later. I'm not too sure about my processing on this image of the Lagoon and will probably redo it later but thought I would post it anyway. Once again it looked good on my laptop and when I transferred it to my desktop it changed completely.The session once again was cut short by either smoke or cloud not sure which but I had to throw away 4 or 5 exposures that suddenly went off the tracks mid shoot :rolleyes: so I called it quits around 3a.m. in frustration.

details as follows :

2x1200sec plus 4x600sec exposures @-15C total 1 hour 20 minutes
WO FLT110 F7 Apo _ EQ6 Pro
SBIG ST2000XCM self guided with CCDOPS
Baader MPCC and UV/IR filters

:thumbsup:

[jase]

Whats not to be sure about Steve. Looks to be a well executed image. Perhaps a few colour balance tweaks could be made, but colour is one of those items thats open to interpretation. If you don't like it, it doesn't matter what anyone else says - you need to be happy with it first. Good job!

[spearo]

well done Steve
Looks fine to me
the focus might be a hint off? I mean very barely noticeable, Im guessing this because your gear i'm sure can generate even tighter stars from what I've seen,
Maybe it just needs a "minimum" filter pass on selected stars (in color range-highlights)?

looks fine though
well done
frank

[bluescope]

Thanks Jase ... sometimes it's hard to be objective !

I really wanted to get more data that night.

:thumbsup:

[bluescope]

Cheers Frank .... I'll have to rig up my electric focuser to make it a bit easier to deal with ... it's awkward reaching out with my hand whilst trying to watch the monitor for the sweet spot. I might give the minimum filter a try too ... haven't used that before.

:thumbsup:

[bluescope]

Well I did a search for "star bloat reduction" and found out how to use the minimum filter ... gave it a try ... with a bit of tweaking to get the settings right this is what I came up with ... I've only applied it to the web image.
Very handy process ;)

Here's a link to the web page that told me how to do it for anyone else wanting to give it a go .....

http://www.astronomy-images.com/Articles/reducing-star-bloat.htm

I've posted the original and minimized versions so the effect can be seen.

Thanks for the suggestion Frank .... I'd seen others talk about it on the forums but had never tried it myself.

:thumbsup:

[bloodhound31]

Steve, that is a great shot. I love this target and never tire of it. I like your colour balance and the star reduction works well, although I can see if you went too far, you could conceivably flatten the image slightly, losing depth.

Love your work mate.

Baz.

[bluescope]

Thanks Baz ...

You do have to be careful not to over apply any filtering as you say ... it's nice to be able to control the brightest stars from taking your eye off the target object with this process. Thanks for your comments !

:thumbsup:

[peter_4059]

Looks good on my monitor - well done Steve.

[bluescope]

Thanks Peter

Monitors are so different ay ... particularly the latest CrystalBrite LCD's in some laptops ( mine are both Acer ).

:thumbsup: