Eta Carina in HST & CFHT

[Hagar]

Pretty rough and could do with a lot more data to work with but this is all I have at the moment. 70 minutes of each Ha, OIII and SII.
Not much SII to show for 70 minutes of exposure.

Captured with QHY9 with Baader NB filters through Takahashi FSQ106ED at f5.

Comments welcome... I know its very green.
Hi res HST image http://www.darkskyau.com/cm/displayimage.php?pid=250&fullsize=1

Hi Res CFHT image http://www.darkskyau.com/cm/displayimage.php?pid=251&fullsize=1



CFHT Pallet version added

[multiweb]

Green's the best :) Top shot Doug. Coming along really nicely. :thumbsup: It will turn redder and bluer when you put in way more Sii. Sii is always the culprit in NB images.... here's a color corrected version (heavily compressed :lol:) of your jpg that is a bit closer to the HST. Push the reds and blues and lower the greens, you get the idea... or you can play and turn the palette around. Use Red Ha, Blue Oiii and Green Sii.

[desler]

Green details!

Boy the data is there alright, You were pretty much on the ball with the needing twice as much SII. I look forward to seeing it progress!


Darren

[strongmanmike]

Nice job Doug

I like the green, perhaps a little more red and blue but it's quite close really..?

Mike

[telecasterguru]

I like green also. The image is working well and I look forward to seeing it with more data.

Frank

[troypiggo]

Wonderful. I like the HST one best. Seems more "natural" - as far as NB goes. :)

[gregbradley]

Hi Doug,

Did you bin your O111 and S11 2x2?

I usually do Ha 1x1 and the others 2x2. If your tracking is up to it use longer subs like 20 minutes or 30 minutes.

When you do your colour combine you need to weight the red and blue up a lot. So perhaps Ha as green is 1, S11 as red is 4 and O111 as blue as 2 or 3. Then you'll see the mustard type tones coming through. Ha is ust about always the very dominant signal and you need to counteract that otherwise NB images will all be very green.

When you process then you also boost the red channel using curves harder than the other channels again fighting this Ha green dominance in the image.

NB imagers usually image the S11 longer as well to get more signal as it is usually quite dim but not always.

You can also add a layer of Ha to the colour image and set it to luminosity and set the opacity slider to suit. It adds some clarity and details and tones down the colour a bit as well.

I hope this helps.

Greg.

[Hagar]

Thanks Greg, Makes sense to me so I have followed your instructions and am fairly happy with the result. It does seem a little more palletable to me at least.

Hi Res Version http://www.darkskyau.com/cm/displayimage.php?pid=253&fullsize=1

[multiweb]

Real cool colors. :thumbsup: Here's a couple of things you can try. I've attached a crop. Hope you don't mind.

1_ light dust 'n' scratched (1px) - gets rid of hot pixels and noise in blue channel.

2_ Color noise reduction 100% (gets rid of pink stars mostly)

3_ Shadow/Highlights to bring out a bit more surrounding neb.

4_ light pass of noise ninja (or other) to get rid of remaining noise in faint areas.

[desler]

Boy Doug,


That really has come up a treat! A thoroughly enjoyable image!

Darren

[Hagar]

Thanks Marc. Will give it a go. Your repro does look good. I'll have plenty of time to try it all out as I'm back on night shift and the sky is perfect. A remote setup sounds good but the boss might object.



Thanks Darren. The colours are a bit different from what we are used to but it does seem to improve the overall contrast on nebulae like this. At least I can get some imaging in with the moon up.

[RobF]

Really like what you've done with this one Doug. Will be watching further NB forays with interest. Sounds like a whole you set of challenges to face. Always nice when the challenges result in some fantastic pics like you have here.

[jase]

Great work Doug. It is evident that bringing out a little more SII provides improved balance to the palette. Like the details. Overall a well composed image.

[Hagar]

Thanks Rob, getting back to less moon so it's back to RGB for a while if ever the con trails blow away and work allows.



Thanks Jase, I'm starting to understand what PS is doing rather than just doing it and I think it makes a big difference. Enjoying every second of it at the moment. It is uplifting to capture a nice image and get some nice compliments.

Thanks again everyone.