Lagoon from suburban Melbourne

[niko]

After weeks of building our new deck I finally managed to set up, polar align and take 50mins of the lagoon.

There's obviously some gunk on the CLS filter or worse on the sensor and I've only done a quick levels and curves but I'm really happy with the guiding.

Actually just happy to have some clear skies on a weekend night!

thanks for looking

niko

[Ross G]

A nice "suburban" capture Niko.

I live in Sydney so I know the woes of "dirty" city skies.

Good tracking also.

Ross.

[niko]

Thanks Ross

[alpal]

Not bad - if you'd just re-framed a bit you would have grabbed the Trifid too.
How long were your subframes?

[alistairsam]

Hi Niko,

It could be my monitor although I opened it in two different PC's but it looked too blue in the shadows.
I had a play of your image in gimp to reduce the bluish tint in the background and came up with this, does this look way off?

your guiding does look very good. Look forward to more.

[niko]

thanks Alistair - looks way better. How did you remove the blue cast?

Alpal - Subs were 5 mins - got 10 in before the moon really started to wash things out.

Sadly as the deck isn't quite finished I had to pack it all up the next morning - still, practice makes perfect!

cheers

niko

[alistairsam]

Hi Niko,
There's not much noise in there for 5 minutes which is good.
I mostly use just levels in gimp, I prefer it over curves.
I've attached a screenshot of the R,G,B channel settings I adjusted to, then a bit of saturation.
IMO, key is adjust only shadows for dark area corrections and highlights for bright areas. I prefer not to use feathered selection unless I have to stretch highlights too much.
so in the attached,
blue channel - reduce in shadows and highlights - reduces blue hue
red channel - increase in midtones and highlights
green channel - reduce shadows and midtones - reduces yellow hue
all channels - reduce shadows and increase midtones - darkens background and brings out a bit more detail in brighter areas

I could be wrong, but this is what I use.

[niko]

thanks so much alistair.

post processing was never my strong suit and it's been so long I forgotten the very little I knew

I'll have a play with your suggestions tonight.

cheers

niko

[Jbunky86]

Hi mate good effort,
I too am imaging from light polluted urban backyard. Just wanted to let you know ever since ive been using Nebulosity for capture, pre+post processing it has made alot of difference. Seems like im able to colour balance out my LP filter and cancel out sky glow alot easier.

Dunno just a thought.

cheers Jason

[overlord]

That is soooo beautiful!

tears.

[niko]

Chucky :-)

Thanks Jason. I'll check out the processing part of it