Scutum Star Cloud with Wild Duck

[avandonk]

Took advantage of a clear night in Melbourne.

Canon 5DH. Canon 300mm F2.8L at f/5. All at 400 ISO fridge at -10.0 C.

10x( 2, 4 & 8 min) exposures. Usual HDR method.

Full res image here 10.6MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_08/scutumstarcloud.jpg

There is a small PN visible at bottom right.

Bert

[multiweb]

Very nicely done Bert. Star shapes are great and well resolved. One of your best I reckon. Even the little blue/green planetary has details on the edge and I also like the globular resolution and colours at the bottom middle left. :thumbsup:

[renormalised]

I like my Scutum Cloud sauteed and then draped over a roasted wild duck with spring vegetables:P:P:D:D

[gregbradley]

Lovely subtle colours.
Great image.

Greg.

[avandonk]

Yes Marc I am guiding the 300mm optic with a 1250mm MAK. So the image resolution is only limited by the optic and sensor. Dithering enhances sensor resolution. The Canon 300mm F2.8L lens is a superb bit of optic. It has better resolution than than the canon 5DH sensor.

The original tiffs were upsized from 73MB to 146MB before median stacking. This makes all the difference. The original tiff that this image is derived from is 135MB. The original Tiff is far better than what you are seeing now a crappy jpg!

The other trick is to correct for flats and darks in uncompressed fits. Stretch the fits and then only convert to 16 bit tiffs for stacking in Registar. I always use the noise option in Registar as it can be quite good at superimposing artefacts. I then go back with the median stacked file and stack again so noise is even further eliminated.

Bert