Hi All,
Been a while between posts, actually haven’t been online much as I’m presently OS for work. I had a glance through this forum to see some spectacular work of others. The overall quality is certainly improving. I’d thought I’d add my share by posting my latest effort;
M1 – The Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula (Messier 1) is a supernova remnant located in the constellation Taurus. It is believed that the remnant formed in 1054, recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers. However it was first observed in the western world by John Bevis in 1731. The intricate knots of nebulosity twist and twirl due the violent winds of the stellar explosion. The Crab Nebula resides approximately 6,300 light years away.
Concise details on the image;
The image is an [L+R]RGB composite totaling 3 hours (Lum:65min;R,G,B:40min respectively). It was acquired on the
Lightbuckets 24” RCOS operating at 4876 mm FL. To extract maximum detail on this image I reused the R channel data and blended it into the lum (20% lighten mode). This extracted the highlights (more contrast) and gave the desired depth I was after. Three renditions of the luminance were then pushed through different deconvolution strengths to further enhance features – these were introduced as luminosity layers, each carefully masked to minimize the effect on stars and/or features of the previous layer. RGB data was good, but contained a few gradients – suspect flat problem, but this didn’t hinder obtaining strong colour with minimal noise – though gradients are subtly present. I used the typical softlight blend of a hard stretch DDP and saturation to bring out the vibrant colours. Noise reduction performed using an invert mask. Minor colour balance tweaks etc. Stellar profiles, umm yeah, I balls’d them up. The image is a crop of a much larger frame, though the field is rather featureless with exception to a few faint fuzzy background galaxies.
Anyway, will try get online when I can.
Hope you enjoy and as always, all comments welcome.
Cheers