Eta Carina Finally!!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

Finally imaged Eta Carina today, before it clouded in. It's been a real pain!
Every time I tried in the past something would go wrong.

It certainly is a diffilcult object to get right, the balance between nebulosity, stars and colour is tricky!

Not saying this is right.

But this is as good as I can get on first go at this object.
Any tips appreciated.

Canon 1100D
Lens 75 to 300 zoom at 160mm f/6.3
19 x 60 sec light frames, 6 darks.
Processed in DSS and Photoshop.

Cheers,

Justin.

[mill]

That is starting to look good Justin, especially for a first good outcome :thumbsup:

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi, Martin.

Thanks for the comments.

I'm going to reprocess, found a couple of images that had thin cloud haze through them.

Cheers,

Justin.

[atalas]

Good effort...keep at It.

[Paul Haese]

Not a bad effort, but you could try going longer on your subs and if you are not doing it already use a bahtinov mask. Magnify the image to around 200% and be really picky about each line being symmetrical. Use an iso of around 400-800.

Keep at it, success will come.

[irwjager]

Hi Justin,

Nice going and glad to hear you got some imaging done in the end. It's a nice image and I really like the framing too.
I agree that with wide fields like these, it can be a bit of pain to get the balance right between nebulosity and stars as there are so many of the latter swamping the former.
Try to shrink the stars a little by putting the stars in a mask and using a Minimize filter on them. Noel Carboni's actions for PS also have script that does something similar.
I attached a repro using a completely different method (no shrinking involved due to the low resolution of the posted image) but it demonstrates how attacking the stars gives the nebula a bit of breathing space. It makes it easier on the eye.

Cheers,

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks, Paul and Ivo.

That repro gives me something to aim for, it certainly makes a difference.
Great to have expertise from accomplished AP's.

Thanks,

Justin.

[Hagar]

Very nice Justin. Shows some of the surrounding area very well.
Great stuff.

[Ross G]

Nice photo Justin.

Great colour and the lens is very sharp.

Ross.