The Eye of God

[bloodhound31]

One dark night in 2 months!! What is going on with this planet!!!

I got 18 subs of 12 minutes and 26 Darks subtracted.

I am still not happy with this. It is SOOOO faint, there has to be a happy medium between getting enough light from the DSO, and not washing it out with light pollution from the 'burbs.

I think I will have to go back to 15 or even 20 minute exposure and see how that goes.

So here it is, 3 hours 36 minutes of the Helix (Eye of God) nebula.

I am still going to get more subs to add for a total of around six hours hopefully.

Baz.

[RB]

Well done mate !
You just can't beat long exposures can you.

Looking forward to what you come up with when you add more subs.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Tom Davis]

Nice start! Will be excellent when you're done.

Tom

[bloodhound31]

How do you guys stop the image going all Jpeggy when you save it small enough for posting?

I use image resizer after I have saved my HUGE .Tiff as a smaller JPEG, but it is still usually a couple of MB at least. When I use image resizer it gets lots of artefacts and looks terrible. The .Tiff I have here looks wonderful by comparison.

[RB]

Baz, in Photoshop I usually resize the full image down to 1280 pixels using the Bicubic Sharper option.
Then convert to 8bit and "save for web" down to the file size I want in jpg.

[bloodhound31]

Thanks Andrew, I will experiment.

Baz.

[Alchemy]

its well on its way, these objects really do need lots of data to do a picture on the wall job, its an often imaged object but nowhere as easy as m8 eta and the other ones.

hope you dont have to wait another 2 months

cheers clive.

[Hagar]

Looking good Barry. Longer exposures seem to be the way to go but LP still can ruin ultra long exposures also.
The outer ring is starting to show through so even some more exposures of the same length will improve it further.

[bloodhound31]

Cheers Clive, thanks for the advice there Doug. I can't wait to get more on this beauty.

Baz.

[toryglen-boy]

thats a great image mate, well done

:)

[lacad01]

Great image, will be good to see the final result :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Baz. Good to see you got something for the wait. Longer subs and more of them mate. That is my goal with this target too. Maybe over several nights.

[Omaroo]

Good on you Barry - top image. You're progressing in leaps and bounds!

[tornado33]

Nice shot though, I can see the Northeast Arc, that ultra faint hard to get band of nebulosity extending above and to the left. Theres also plenty of detail in the helix itself. It is a very low surface brightness object. What camera are you using, the Orion CCD now?
Scott

[bloodhound31]

What a great crowd we have here huh? :thumbsup:

Yes Scott, this is the one...

[Screwdriverone]

Looking good Barry,

Is it just me (probably) or is the black point not right?

It seems the background is very washed out like skyglow or is this from not enough subs?

Correct me if I am wrong, I won't cry if someone tells me to pull my head in. I don't have much experience in these things.

Cheers

Chris

[bloodhound31]

As I said, I am not happy with it yet. At this point, on such a dim object, I have stretched 3 hours 36 minutes as far as I can to bring out the nebula. This means the black point is a bit washy. If I set it lower, I start to lose the fainter area's. Sometimes, we have to sacrifice or compromise to get what we want out of a photo.

In this case, when I get some more subs, I will be able to set the black point a little darker without losing the fainter areas.

Baz.

[Screwdriverone]

Oh I see, sorry, next time I will read the posts more carefully. I knew it wasnt finished but didnt understand why.....thanks for the clarification.

I will look forward (silently) to the final result with baited keyboard ;)


Chris

[tornado33]

Nice imaging rig there too. Good to see youre using a Q guider type guide cam too :)
Yep, add some more data from subsequent imaging sessions when you can
Scott

[Ric]

Looking good so far Baz, the finished product should be a beauty.

A fantastic looking setup you have there as well.

Cheers

[prokyon]

Nice pic of one of my favorite objects! :thumbsup: Keep on....

cheers

werner

[bloodhound31]

Arrrr....don't worry about it Chris, all good mate. I'll do my best for ya mate.

Thanks again guys for your compliments and encouragement.

I was going out again for it last night. I have never seen fog like that!:scared: My beard was wet from it and I was almost drinking the air! This morning it was foggy and raining at the same time??? :screwy:

I guess the Lord is teaching me patience by making me wait for the thing I am most passionate about.

Baz.

[Tamtarn]

Nicely done Baz :thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

No worries Baz! :thumbsup:

I agree with the DEW! by the time I got all set up and Jupiter was high enough, my secondary was DRENCHED. Not much fun.

Chris

[peeb61]

Great work Baz, lots of nice detail.
Mate you have a lot of patience.

Paul

[bloodhound31]

Thanks Paul.

For the opportunity to capture a glimpse of the works of our creator and do it justice, I have all the time in the world mate.:thumbsup:

Baz.:D

[jase]

Kudos Baz. This is an impressive effort given its a difficult target at the best of time. Excellent work. Keep them coming.