[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A fabulous image. How did you get your stars so small? They look amazing.

Terrific resolution on the hour glass nebula.

Another stunner.

Greg.

Thanks very much Greg :-) The trick with the stars is to use narrowband stars (typically H) for the luminance and RGB for the chrominance.

Originally Posted by Atmos

Still has me thinking Chroma if I do go a set of 2". Some of their earlier batches did have some halos but they've worked hard after user feed back and managed to eliminate with dual AR coatings or something. Antila is CONSIDERABLY cheaper though and for the price that's a pretty minor halo

They definitely resolve well though!

Yeah, if you have the money Chroma/Astrodon are definitely the way to go. I've now done an actual comparison with my Astronomik O filter and the Astronomik is much better than the Antlia with regard to halo. Unfortunately the use of an OAG and desire to do LRGB and NB on the same night (automated) mean I can't continue to use the Astronomik, so that's out... I may end up getting an Astrodon 3nm O filter down the line, but I'm very happy with the Antlia S and H.

Originally Posted by pkinchington

Lovely depth and smooth transitions. What set up (telescope and camera) did you use Codemonkey?.
Cheers Kanga

Thanks Kanga The scope used was the TS ONTC 8" F4.5 newtonian, with an odd Paracorr that brings it to F5. Camera was an ASI 183mm Pro.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Gee...that has exceptional resolution.

Beautifully tight stars, filigree details and smooth data.

I'd be hard pushed to find a better Narrow Band Lagoon on the web.

Top-shelf stuff.

Thanks very much Peter

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Getting tired of seeing the same objects imaged over, and over ..... and over! ....
EXCEPT when they have the exquisite detail and colours of your beautiful rendition Lee! Very nicely done!

haha, thanks Marcus That's the sad thing about "common" subjects, you can do a great job but most of the time nobody cares because it's just another image of that same old target. Glad you like this one though :-)

Originally Posted by Andy01

Yes, another great result Lee!
Framed this way it's like being at Sydney Aquarium, looking into one of the giant fish tanks as the diaphinous jellyfish like core of the Lagoon swims gracefully by.
Will be interesting to see how the new filters perform on dimmer objects.

Thanks Andy! My wife also thought it looked like an aquarium. I'm sold on the Antlia S and H, I expect they'll work fine on targets dim or bright, but the O halos will be annoying.

Originally Posted by multiweb

That's an awesome M8 Lee. New benchmark.

Thanks Marc!

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

That is a lovely image Lee. Sharp detail and processed beautifully. Well done.

Thanks very much Paul :-)

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Having another look at this excellent image Lee ...have to say, once again you have clearly demonstrated the level of misguided cynicism of the occasionally stated belief, that medium focal length with small pixels, produces vanilla images and only "long"..? focal length can hit the mark, you da man

Love yer work dude

Mike

Thanks Mike! Yeah, I don't get the fascination with long focal length scopes. It's all about sampling... 0.5"/px is 0.5"/px, doesn't matter if you're 3m or 1m. Of course you need at least a little bit of aperture to go with it, but other than that...

I had been planning on building a bigger (12" or so) newt to put on the Mesu, but I'm just gonna keep the 8" newt... when you do the math, it's actually pretty hard to beat. I could go a bit longer focal length and move to F4, but I honestly have more than enough difficulty with the F5, I do not want to get a faster scope that requires so much fiddling to get good stars.

Maybe one day as a retirement present I'lll get myself a CDK or something (mostly because I really hate fiddling with newts) but until then...

Originally Posted by Craig_

Absolutely stunning rendition of M8.

Thanks Craig!

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

Sharp, lots of detail and plenty to like with this image. Great work

Thanks very much Rodney