KeyHoles crack

[richardo]

Hi folks, long time no post,
thought I'd better get myself back on the map again.
Been pretty poor conditions as is typical around here this time of year.
Still this has some lum from November and Ha & rgb from this month.
Nothing great.
I blended the stars from my lum about 50% to the Ha.. found the Ha held a bit more detail along the reefs and more contrast.

Hopefully be out a bit more weather permitting. Have a new SX filter wheel arriving in a couple of weeks and hopefully save for a bigger ccd.

http://www.baytop-observatory.com/ccdimages/nebulae/ngc3372KeyholeNewt.htm

Hope your all able to get some better conditions than me.
All the best for now:thumbsup:
Rich

[CoombellKid]

rock'n bro!!! awesome image!!!

But isn't the Keyhole Neb located just to the right of Eta Carina and
looking somewhat decapitated?

Cheers,CS

[multiweb]

Yeah very cool! Loads of details in there. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

A very colourful and pleasing image.

Greg.

[richardo]

Hi Rob, yeah, you're right of course. Funny, I always thought the 'Keyhole' was actually the dark 'v' rift that divides this whole nebula.....
I don't know what I was looking at when I framed things for my rgb run..
My Ha and Lum had the Eta bubble just in the fov..... think I lost the plot as on alignment I had to crop a heap.
No worries if it was a large chip but with my little chip, cropping comes at a huge cost...




Thanks Marc! Was happy enough with some of the finer detail I managed to obtain... shame about my alignment though... realised this after I had my red and green channels down... darn!



Thanks for taking a look Greg.
Was happy how the data stretched out. The seeing was pretty soft through the Ha and lum data however. It was after some pretty hot days and the air was still pretty messed up. I was continuously refocusing to obtain better FWHM values.

Thanks guys for your nice comments.

Rich

[Jeff]

Fantastic result Rich. Great to see soooo many stars and variety of colours in the guts of the neb. :thumbsup:

[Garyh]

Hi Rich, nice keyhole area image, unusual framing but quiet a pleasant composition!
cheers Gary

[AlexN]

Very pretty area, and wonderful processing too I must say.. Looks very natural and the dynamic range is rather special too.. theres even a hint of good detail within the dark areas..

Fantastic stuff.

[richardo]

Thanks Jeff, a wonderful nebula that suits all fov's no matter what setup we have.. we're soo lucky to have her out our back doors!



Thanks Gaz.
I always wanted to get down more of the southern part... I remember imaging it many years ago with a lowly .3 MP ccd... while the res wasn't there, there were some really nice little details to be observed.



Thanks very much Alex!
With the data I had, was surprised how far I could push it post processing wise in CS3... stars were a little soft so selectively sharpened the larger ones as well as a few areas of interest in the neb....

Thanks again chaps for the nice comments
Hope the skys are treating you well
All the best for now
Rich

[Octane]

Rich,

Wow, mate, that is amazing.

There is a veritable amount of detail in there. Love the processing, too. Pity about the channel misalignment.

H

[richardo]

Thanks H....
There are some really finely resolved stars that I was quite surprised revealed considering the conditions. Like what the Ha data brought to the image.
Yes, I'm still kicking myself for the mis alignment... hate things like this happening when opportunity is limited.

Thanks for taking a look and commenting H.
Hope your getting out, nothing but cloud here now :(
All the best
Rich

[StarGazing]

WOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW. :eyepop:. Rich ....... fantastic photo there mate.

Best of luck with it. Alex.

[richardo]

Thanks for commenting Alex!
It's such a great neb... nice and bright and sits perfect for us in the southern Hem... lots of stuff to see within!

All the best
Rich

[strongmanmike]

Hey Richi poo, forgot to comment on this image..?...:confuse3:

Interesting piece of work, there is certainly some good detail present but the framing has me stumped :question: and I know your conditions wre not ideal but the stars still look just a little too blobby for so much Ha? Why not try shrinking the LRGB stars a tad before combining with the Ha?

Given your thin air time though congrats on actually getting some data together into a quite respectable image though :thumbsup:

MIke

[richardo]

Hey Mike the man...
Yeah, had Eta just in with my lum and Ha, but my colour channels were way out.... as you can see by the finished composite. Didn't realise till finishing off the green channel.... don't ask, ok:rofl:
As far as my combine method, well this is it in a nut shell...
With the Lum, hated the thickness of the refraction spikes on the larger stars from the spider as the evening was soft.... Ha had a great amount of contrast (as expected) but hated the lack of stars.... especially the smaller ones... in comparison, but the thickness of the spider refraction on the larger stars lin the Ha looked good and thin...sooooo, masked the stars from the lum, (bar the spikes) and added them to the Ha.... then using the same mask on the lum, inverted the image, removing any traces of spikes, just to add a little bit more of variation to the nebulosity in the Ha and layered the lum about 30- 40% to the new Ha image with the adjusted stars..
Thought this would save me using minimum to reduce the star size in both the Lum and RGB with aligning it to the Ha...

Was a bit of an experiment really and thought the end result wasn't too bad.
Just dealing with what i had to obtain the best I could with what I had...
mmm... words to that effect:shrug:

Thanks for looking Migel....

BTW,, you got some nice filters there!

All the best

Rich