IC2944 Hubble Palette

[JohnH]

Here is my attempt at the running chook I think you would do well to find it in this image!

There is a fair bit of data in the image which is approx 4 hrs each or Ha, Oiii and Sii. My stars got out of control (bloated) so my apologies for that - I have so much to learn with NB processing....

[multiweb]

That's a terrific shot John. The close up on the bok globules is so sharp. Colors and processing are also spot on. Nice work. :thumbsup:

[Hagar]

Nice one John, For your first real attempt this is great. I still can't get it this good. Keep an eye on the stars, they are a bugger with NB.
Nice work.

[renormalised]

Nice shot :)

Stealth Chook!!!!:):P

[Ric]

Hi John, the colours look great in this image and I like the way the Bok globules stand out.

What type of scope and camera were you using?

Cheers

[JohnH]

I am very happy to hear these positive comments - I lost the best part of a year of imaging due to work and then equipment issues and was on the point of throwing in the towel a month or so back. I finally seem to have my equipment gremlins under control (tempting fate there?) so I hope to be able to do more regular imaging....

The image was taken with a 127mm ED triplet (the North Group scope but fitted with a moonlite focuser) Astronomic nb filters and an Opticstar 145m Ice on the back (cooled Sony ICX205AL sensor). Stacking/calibration was in DSS, colour systhesis in AA4 and levels and some sharpening in PSE.

[bmitchell82]

Nice job there John,

with your stars normally the issue with the bloat comes from the actual processing of the image in my experience. When your really pushing the data to bring out the faint whispy's you also bring out the faint halo in the stars that ends up not being that faint at the end.

I have never used AA4 though I do use adobe PSCS5 but I would think they have the same options when looking at linear and non linear stretching, eg, Levels and Curves. The one thing also that PS has is Shadows and high lights, in this little filter you can really bring the stars back to a tolerable size even after stretching as it grabs all the highlights (stars and bright parts of the nebula) and suppresses them (virtually doing a non linear curves only in the upper end of the histogram). And then if it kills your nebula too much, just Layer mask the area back to its original brightness.

Other than that I really like the colours though a little bit of noise control could be introduced I'd say in the 0III channel to smoothen up the image.

Good luck

Brendan:thumbsup:

[atalas]

Nice work,love the bok's.