Lagoon Nebula from Stromlo

[blueskies123_89]

Hello everyone,

After almost 3 months without observing, I went up to Mt Stromlo during the weekend and took this shot of M8. It's nice to be back observing.

It has more of a blue tint to it than other photos of this target, probably because of the lack of Ha sensitivity by DSLRs. It's a bit annoying but thats what I have to live with...

http://www.pbase.com/gzhou_astrophotography/image/127295702

Here is a crop showing the inner bits of the lagoon at full res.

http://www.pbase.com/gzhou_astrophotography/image/127296532

Enjoy
George

[strongmanmike]

Overall that is a great result George :eyepop:. The Lagoon is such a benchmark for an imager and you have done as a fine job :thumbsup: I don't think it is too blue at all the colours look pretty good to me.

Nice job

Mike

[gregbradley]

Wow, that is an awesome Lagoon. You got the colours perfectly.
There is some reflection nebula in it as well and you caught that.
I like the nebulous look of it. Lagoon can be quite a delicate object.

Greg.

[blueskies123_89]

Thanks guys for the compliments. I don't think I can get the results I'm getting with 6 or 7 hrs of imaging from suburban places. Stromlo's pretty cool.

[multiweb]

Cracker shot! B.E.A.U.tiful! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Nice image George. this target is one tough sucker. Your image is well processed but the colour is not quite to my liking, but that does not mean your image is lesser for it. I like your star colours and I am pleased to see that you captured the blue reflection nebula as I did recently.

Well done.

[renormalised]

Nice shot, George....lots of detail!!:)

[marc4darkskies]

This is a fine rendition George! :thumbsup:

Not 100% sure of the colour balance ... maybe reduce the contribution of green, to make it look a little redder(?)

Cheers, Marcus

[luigi]

Fantastic Lagoon I love the shot!
If I have to pick a nit to improve I'd say you might have gone overboard with noise reduction as some areas feel a little plastic. But if you don't change a bit the image is still superb.

[rcheshire]

Very nice. Now I know what it should look like, and there is no star bloat, which is a great help to see - revises my approach to processing.

Had a look through your gallery... superb images...

[Alchemy]

Hi George

I spent a long time looking at this before I made a comment, I really like the image, not just be because I have the same scope ( great scope by the way). Color processing is much a personal thing some like it red some don't, those with Ha sensitive mono cameras can do wonders by doing long Ha exposures and blending them by fancy means to highlight particular things. Which is very impressive.....BUT it is to some degree contrived, having the faintest gas glowing brighter than the stars.......
I like the NATURAL feel this image has, the brightness of the central regions illuminating from within, the stars are nice and tight, the reflection nebulosity which overlayss the area is evident, which often due to processing the Ha gets overwhelmed, overall it's a very pleasing image.
Ive seen a couple of images lately which tell me that even though some very incredible ccd cameras are around the DSLR is certainly still able to produce fine images.

Cheers Clive

[blueskies123_89]

Hi guys


Thanks!


Hi Paul, thanks for the comments. I expected that the colour is not going to be great for the photo. I tried changing the colour balance redward, but it ruined the surrounding stars. So I guess I just didn't get enough red into the camera due to the IR filter.


Thank you!


Hi Marcus, thanks for the tip. I might try selectively changing the colour balance of the nebula.


Hi Luigi, yes you noticed the noise reduction :) I'll keep it in mind when I get the time to do a repo later on.


Hi Rowland, thanks for the comment. Fortunately there were no bloating from the raws, so I didn't actually have to edit any out whilst processing. I guess nice weather helps.


Hi Clive, thanks for the encouragement, and it is a wonderful scope isn it! Yes Ha sensitivity can make it seem a bit more contrived I guess, but I'll still take a CCD any day, only if I had the funds... :lol:

To be really really honest, I didn't notice that there were reflection nebulae around the place until people pointed it out in their posts, still a nOOb here. Yes, I try to go for a natural look when I process, minimising any sharpening or contrast enhancement and I guess going overboard with noise reduction sometimes. Cheap DSLRs are great for what they are, and if I can get a good image out of it once in a while, then why not.
:thanx:
George