M13 - Hercules Cluster

[Paramount]

I took this last night but was only able to get just over 3 hours of data so this is 12x5 minutes each for red and green and 15x5 minutes for blue. It was taken with the FSQ106ED at f5 and Starlight Xpress SXVF H9 on a Paramount ME. Auto guiding was by a Lodestar/OAG combination with dithering.
The processing was very simple although several iterations of levels and curves were used while inverse selecting the core with feathering to avoid burning it out. No sharpening or noise reduction was used.
This was the first subject that got me into imaging 4 years ago when I took a picture with my Meade LX200 and DSI using 15 second exposures, this can be seen on the star cluster page of the image gallery of my website http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk to see how far I have progressed since then.
There is a full size high resolution version at the following link
http://www.pbase.com/imaging_the_heavens/image/134435973/original
Thanks for looking
Best wishes
Gordon

[TrevorW]

Nice one Gordon like the charcoal background and how you picked up some faint fuzzies although a tinge green on my monitor also probably needs a bit more definition in the core IMO

[Ross G]

A great photo Gordon.

I like the colours and the detail.


Ross.

[Paramount]

Hi Trevor
Thanks for the comments, I've see the image on several monitors including the very bright screen on my netbook and I can't see any green tinge, so it may be a monitor or website issue. I appreciate what you say about the definition in the core but I think the only way that I could have increased the definition would be to use either deconvolution, sharpening, star reduction routines or a combination of them and I feel the image would have an artificial look to it which I always avoid. I have seen many M13 images where people have gone over the top with these routines to better separate and define the stars and it doesn't look as natural
Best wishes
Gordon

[TrevorW]

Fair comment Gordon

Cheers