What a difference 3 years makes ...

[marc4darkskies]

My last image of the Leo Trio was the second time I'd targetted this subject. The first time, 3 years ago, I was a complete novice at imaging, I stuffed up the focussing and the seeing was bad. Now that I (sort of) know what I'm doing I thought it would be fun to compare the two versions captured with exactly the same equipment. See below - 3 years ago on the left, a couple of weeks ago on the right ...

[[1ponders]]

Wow. What a difference. Nice detail

[h0ughy]

Yes Marcus, there is a slight improvement ;)

so the secret to your success - a bit if fibreglass? learning to focus? pot luck with conditions? Awesome results from the hard work you put in.

[jase]

Looks like you've taken the second image and ran a gaussian blur over it to produce the first image! :lol:

Nice comparison Marcus. Nothing like reflecting on the past, just don't let the pondering get in the way of the future. ;)

[David Fitz-Henr]

Yes, good to see that you're not stagnating!!!

[marc4darkskies]

Message to beginners ... hang in there!



Yep, that's for sure. Maybe in a couple of years I'll get seeing like that again! :)



Hehehe ... It's all about the journey Jase. Anyway, pondering is about all I can do when the moon is up. And the future? Watch this space. :D

[marc4darkskies]

Nah, with SLATO snapping at my heels I need to keep moving ;)

[RB]

Sorry which one is the original one again ? :lol:

That's just chalk and cheese Marcus !!!

Fantastic improvement indeed.
It's funny to look back at our own work and see our progress.
Great comparison.

[gregbradley]

Yes that is an amazing improvement.

Greg.

[renormalised]

Big difference...more experience and better equipment.

[astroron]

the first one looks like Hubble before COSTAR:( and the second after COSTAR:D
Good work, keep it up:thumbsup:

[allan gould]

Great thread. We should all go back to past shots and see if we have progressed or stagnated.

[jjjnettie]

Marcus, such a difference.!

[leon]

Great stuff mate, it looks very nice indeed.

Leon

[Phil Hart]

great comparison! the really tough question is how do you improve on that!?

i've seen some improvements at my end as well.. some of what i can pull out in photoshop has taken a big step forward recently.. looking at what Tom Davis does with dust and using Noel Carboni's Astronomy Actions or at least seeing the steps used in those actions has helped me quite a bit.

keep em coming..

[RobF]

Amazing Marcus. I particularly enjoy these sorts of frank reflections from people - its a huge help to those way down the ladder that it is possible to keep advancing. Thanks for showing the comparison. I expect we're seeing huge improvements in data collection and processing technique here. Nice.

[marc4darkskies]

Hey thanks guys! I guess we're all (beginner and experienced alike) looking to improve our efforts with each image and it's nice to validate success at that by comparing with past efforts. BTW, what most of you don't know is that I quietly update old images as I learn new techniques. The old version I showed in this post was beyond help of course - that's why I imaged it again. Can't wait to image NGC 1365 again! :D



Thanks Phil and to answer your question honestly, I doubt I can get more detail from the equipment I have and the typical seeing conditions I get here. But there's plenty of room for impovement in the quality & colour of my renditions ... just look at the work of Ken Crawford, Adam Block and Rob Gendler to see what I mean!



Thanks Rob and that's exactly the point. Sadly, I see some folks actually being afraid to post here because their images (in their eyes) don't stack up. Well, we all go through that, and if there's any message here it's hang in there, experiment with your processing and post ... share the journey because we're all interested!