Well...I haven't captured any more data but for the life of me, I was frigin determined to wring some more fidelity and detail out'a this damn crap Trifid data
So...
1) Even given the conditions, the small amount of Halpha I gathered wasn't enough but it had the most detail in it so I re layered it in both the Lum and the Red being more careful with the layer blending, applied some high pass layering and selective sharpening and local contrast enhancement to bring out the dust lanes in the cats face better and give it some 3 dimensional depth.
2) Improved the star shapes, colour and fidelity with better blending and worked on improving the blue channel which was most affected by the poor seeing
3) Lifted the overall colour fidelity without stretching in any more noise (not enough data to begin with
)
Still be better to gather some Lum and or Ha under better conditions to really improve it but hopefully it has more oomph and fidelity now...what do you think?
The new improved Trifid Nebula
oooor displayed
a little smaller it looks better
Given the conditions and low amount of data, I think this is about as good as it gets...without introducing processing artifacts
EDIT: funny, every image I have taken of the Trifid since about 2004 was done in poor conditions, I can't get a break on this one
although I think this latest version was the first taken entirely under a bright moon
as well..?
2009: wind, bad seeing, drifting cloud and fog
2007: Poor seeing and wind
2006: poor seeing
- but hey..no guiding! - I turned it off so the autoguiding wouldn't chase the seeing = the NJP
is a great mount
2006: poor seeing and high cloud again
aaaand
early 2004: can't find the log notes for this one..but I was a fledgling CCD imager then...can you tell?
Mike