Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae

[troypiggo]

Another attempt at 7x8min frames, but due to guiding problems only able to use 4 of them. Very frustrating.

Again, any tips appreciated.

http://piggo.com/~troy/photos/2009/2009_04_25/trifid_lagoon.jpg

[Hagar]

Nice one Troy, But again, more data,more data. Also you have quite a bit of curvature around the edges and could use a field flattener for your scope or keep to the center and crop heavily.

[gregbradley]

Nice framing. This object often comes up with a very brown background.
That can be a bit sandy coloured in spots where the stars are very thick.

As mentioned you need a flattener to handle that in the centre sharply in focus then out of focus/coma at the corners.

Televue make a .8X reducer/flattener, William Optics make several flatteners, perhaps Borg. Most flatteners are zero
magnification meaning they don't reduce or increase magnification.

Greg.

[jase]

Good work Troy. I'd give the PS shadow/highlights tool a whirl to give the image a final stretch and colour boost. It works well when you've already stretched the data as you have, but not to its full potential (i.e. completely stretched).

[troypiggo]

Thanks Doug, Jase and Greg. Appreciate the tips.

I have ordered a WO 0.8x FF some 5 weeks ago, still waiting for it to arrive any day now. I'm hoping this will solve, or at least improve, the eggy stars. I was warned on another forum that spacing of these FFs is critical and could be an issue with the DSLR and T-adapters etc. Any comments on that?

[Hagar]

From memory the WO Pflat2 I had was 54mm from CCD to flattener lens.
Not terribly critical as long as you are in the ball park.