M8+M20 and M8 HaRGB (8hrs exposure)

[AlexN]

Continuing on from Friday nights efforts, I got M8, M20 and M21 all into the field of view at once....

M8+M20+M21 in Ha - 10x1200s exposures - 3hrs 20mins.

The following picture uses M8 data from Friday and Saturday nights, This contains 18x1200sec exposures in Ha, and 24x300sec OSC exposures.. a total of 8 hours exposure. This is my longest exposure image to date.. Im still not 100% happy with it.. I will be much happier when I can get some fresh colour data with a matching focal length..

Alex.

FULL RES LINKS
M8+M20 full frame. 3040x2016 ~ 3.8mb (http://users.on.net/%7Ekooliez/alexnastro/M8_M20_3hrs_20min_Ha.jpg)
M8 HaRGB. 100% crop. 1.2mb (http://users.on.net/%7Ekooliez/alexnastro/M8_6hr_ha_2h_OSC_done.jpg)

[renormalised]

Great piccies, Alex. I'd be happy with those, myself:D:D

[Hagar]

Nice images Alex. I particularly like M8/M20 in Ha. Not too overcrowded with stars with lots of detail.

Well done.

[Kevnool]

Stunning Alex there great.
Great work i enjoy looking at them.
Cheers Kev.

[AlexN]

Thanks Carl, Doug and Kev.

Doug - Im amazed to be honest.. the amount of detail I'm able to capture from light polluted suburbia (astronomy hell, if you will) by use of the Ha filter is tremendous.. Now I'm able to capture images from home, and just wait till new moon to get corresponding colour data... Its very helpful! I still can't get over how wide and flat my field of view is! it sort of blows my mind sometimes...

Kev, More to come mate.. This weekend coming im off to dark skies, I'll try and get 2hrs colour to add to the M8/M20 wide field, and might try to get another 2~3hrs Ha during the week to produce a deep, wide, full colour image of the area.. Fingers crossed !!

[multiweb]

Great details Alex. :thumbsup: IMHO the color blend is a bit too contrasty but that's me. I like my M8s softy. :)

[AlexN]

Thanks Marc, Yea I did boost the contrast a fair bit.. Just trying to make the best use of the super contrasty Ha data... I probably could have backed it off a little... I like it though.. has a real sharpness about it!

Getting a print done in the next week or so on A3.. hopefully it comes out ok!

[Matty P]

They are both beauties Alex. Very nice indeed. :)

The new scope is definitely producing some very sharp images. Love the Ha widefield. Perfect FOV for imaging it. :thumbsup:

[marc4darkskies]

Your M8/M20 Ha looks fantastic Alex! :thumbsup: Look forward to seeing the hi-res!

Agree with Marc on the colour M8 - I'd back off on the contrast a tad.

Cheers, Marcus

[dugnsuz]

Nice stuff Alex.
Fave is the Ha, both are excellent though.
Doug

[AlexN]

Matt - Cheers, the scope sure is a winner.. I always used to wonder what people meant when they said that their gear did most of the work on an image.. Now I know... This scope provides the sharpest images I've ever captured, and thats before I start processing... I'm loving it.


Marc - Thanks mate.. High res images are linked at the bottom of this post... The field of view is amazing considering Im used to imaging with 1600mm + focal lengths.. What is achievable now is quite amazing. On the full res I backed off the contrast a touch on the HaRGB crop of M8. Let me know how that looks...

Doug - Cheers. I too prefer the Ha only shot mostly for its brooding FOV... I do love colour shots though...

M8 + M20 Ha Wide Field ~ 3040x2016 Approx 3.8mb. (http://users.on.net/%7Ekooliez/alexnastro/M8_M20_3hrs_20min_Ha.jpg)

M8 HaRGB 100% Crop ~ 1.2mb. (http://users.on.net/%7Ekooliez/alexnastro/M8_6hr_ha_2h_OSC_done.jpg)

[multiweb]

Very cool :thumbsup: Nicely done. Your TV is huge mate! Did you build the house around it? :lol:

[AlexN]

hahaha... nope, got 3 dudes to carry it through the door... and it aint a TV... Its a high definition computer monitor. It has never had a TV antenna plugged into it... It is for DVD's and image processing work only!

[multiweb]

:eyepop: Holy c**p - talk about pixels in your face! You'd need a 5m USB mouse extension to sit far enough to see the whole picture no? :lol: If I had a screen like that I'd be shooting a lot more people on my PS3. ;)

[sjastro]

They are fine images Alex.

I noticed there are some colour registration issues in your M8 image.

Regards

Steven

[DavidU]

VERY cool Alex !
What is the new scope? what camera?

[AlexN]

Colour registration?

If you mean the actually aligning of the colour image on the Ha channel, then you are most likely correct... I did this manually in photoshop, and the colour data was taken with a different scope, with 200mm more focal length... It was quite a task.. however I got it to that point and thought, bugger it.. its good enough, I'll get matching focal length colour data next weekend and all will be good! :D

Cheers mate.

[AlexN]

Thanks David - The scope is a TMB/LOMO 80mm F/6 Triplet APO. the camera is an Orion StarShoot Pro...

[AlexN]

haha.. Wireless mouse mate. :) I have a 3m extension on the keyboard cable though..

Its got a decent resolution.. 1920x1080... When I set astro images as my desktop background, at night time, the whole room lights up the same colour as the image... Fred's image of M31 from one of the GRAS FSQ setups was my background for quite some time... amazing to view high res images on a 52" HD LCD.. Nothing beats it.

[sjastro]

I register my colour and luminance images in Registar prior to combining in Photoshop.

Registar does a good job on images of different FL and on images that have been rotated.

Steven

[AlexN]

I've looked into that Steven, and intend to buy Registar for that purpose.. Also for the purpose of creating mosaics, and for combining data taken days or even weeks apart where the camera angle may have been rotated etc.. I do plan to stop using data from different focal length systems, I've just not had any colour data to work from with this scope yet.. So I've been using colour data from previous scopes. This has involved manual resizing and rotation, followed by alignment, which as you can see in the image, is not a fool proof method :D

Cheers.
Alex.

[danielsun]

Wow, great work Alex, both stunning images heaps of detail and really like the M20/M8 widefield.:thumbsup:

Cheers Daniel.

[marc4darkskies]

Yep - colour M8 looks better. :thumbsup: A bit of noise showing in your Ha M8/M20 shot but overall a very pleasing image. Nice work Alex!

You won't know yourself when you get registar. Astro image stacking without a proper registration tool is like doing carpentry without a hammer :)

Cheers, Marcus

[Octane]

Onya Alex,

My pick is the M8/M20 in hydrogen alpha. Looks superb. Maybe a project for next year to add some colour? :)

Regards,
Humayun

[AlexN]

Thanks H,

I actually added colour to that image last new moon... I'll dig up a link when i get home from work... I am pretty sure its in a thread called "Images from Barambah" but can't be certain...

Thanks again mate.
Alex.

[Octane]

Alex,

My bad. I am catching up on missed threads and posts. I will get to it, no doubt. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[atalas]

They look great Alex!