LMC at zenith

[avandonk]

From my home site this is about as good as it gets for the LMC.
Details Canon 5DH with 300mm F2.8L @ F2.8,LPR filter, in cam NR on,ISO 800, 8X60sec , 6x180sec sec, Raw to 16b Tiff, stacked with Registar, levels etc in Photoshop. Stacked both sets seperately and adjusted in Photoshop and then stacked the two results together and then adjusted in PS again. I hope to do some longer exposures and add them.
Larger version 450k
http://users.bigpond.net.au/avandonk/LMC01_03.jpg

Bert

[rogerg]

Very nice image, congrants :)

Shame about the little bit of vinyetting, but still undoubtably a great image - such nice detail in the nebula's spread throughout. Makes me want to do a higher mag image of each of those with my ST7.

:thumbsup:

Roger.

[avandonk]

That is the great thing rogerg about wide fields at the best resolution possible it puts all the superb high mag high res pictures into some sort of context. I have not bothered with correcting the vignetting (it is F2.8 after all !) until I have longer exposures and then will try flats to correct it. For years I have seen very nice astro pics and could not place them in relation to each other. There are too many potential targets in this one picture to list as I dont know their designation.

Here is a pic of Brad Moore's superb Tarantula superimposed on the widefield.

Bert

[tornado33]

Howdy
Great image there
Hope you dont mind, but I had a play with Gradient Xterminator in Photoshop CS with your image, it also neutralizes the sky background. Theres a lot of beautiful ionized hydrogen areas in adittion to the tarantula nebula :)
Scott

[h0ughy]

I keep being amazed as to how much detail is above our heads, and the northern hemisphere doesn't have these!

[avandonk]

Thats really good Scott. Looks like I have a lot to learn about tweaking images. I cant email raw files as they are between 12 to 15 mb. I can snailmail CD or DVD.

Bert

[tornado33]

Hi Bert
Your original image was fine, all it needed was a run with Gradient Xterminator, a Photoshop Plugin, which gets rid of most of the vignetting, and also neutralises any colour cast in the background. It even gets rid of most of the amp glow in my 300D camera.
Gradient xterminator site
http://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/
Its well worth it. Only time it struggles is if imaging nebulosity that extends off the image, it works best if you can draw round the nebula or object, allowing Gradient Xterminator to smoogh out the area outside that.

So the best thing is to process your images as you normally do, and run Gradient Xterminator once youre at the stage where you are using Photoshop :)
Scott

[avandonk]

I am having a shot at it. Here is a start. Will do more later.

Bert

[Rodstar]

What an amazing thread. I take my hat off to all of you. I wouldn't mind a poster of that image!