[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Wow! Lovely rich colours, M&T.

Cheers, Rick. A technique new for us.

Originally Posted by Atmos

For such a small amount of data this really shows how many photons get sucked up with 20" of aperture!

One thing I have learned from PixInsight is that what you select as the normalisation frame makes a difference.
When I use LinearFit I usually use Ha as the reference as it is the cleanest and has the most exposure time. This leads to very red dominant (Ha dominant) images where any of the Hb signal or reflection nebula is lost.

If I LinearFit all the frames to the Red channel however it helps preserve the correct colour balance while adding the Ha signal to the dimmest red areas.
I believe that fitting everything to Ha gives a better SNR but at the cost of colour balance.

I do a Max(Ha,R) function for creating the red channel. It adds Ha to the dim areas while keeping the bigger fatter R stars.

Thanks, Colin. That's helpful advice.

Originally Posted by Geoff45

Looking good Mike

Originally Posted by atalas

Nice work on a wonderful cluster guys!

Thanks Geoff and Louie.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

He he this looks familiar..."The test shot in Moonlight cluster"

Yeah the blue is there for sure and I think shooting RGB (at least) under a dark New Moon, is the best way to tackle showing this properly, not to mention the other colours in the region...and plenty of exposure of course I found it difficult to show the blue well too and it was due to these two factors for sure.

Mike

Hi, Mike! Yes, "Test shot by moonlight" can only be a taste test, but now we're hooked. Next new moon there will be a fight over whether to do this or the Sombrero.

Best,
MnT