Not bad Jase, the Grus trio is really a favourite of many of us down under huh?
Now you are always honest with me
"and" you are using the best and have great skills and I know ya like it straight and in minute detail
... soooo I am gunna be brutally honest
Overall an interesting image and had it been done on an ordinary backyard scope I would be reasonably impressed and say so but while the image is certainly quite nice it lacks any wowyness this time, something that 13hrs on an expensive automated commercial telescope probably needs to offer in my mind to validate the cost...but anyway if money isn't in the equation so be it.
The image is certainly smooth but at the 2400X1800 size it deffinitely has that just-a-bit-too-long focal length for the aperture and seeing conditions (breath) so lots of processing was necessary, look to it. The 1600 X 1200 size looks the best. The colours look just a little dirty and mute to me too with the galaxy cores having a strange and somewhat mute burned orange colour and the arms are a funny muted blue colour
. There is certainly some nice detail and you have clearly put a bit of processing work into it but I think the focal length and seeing probably just weren't quite in agreement on this outing as the detail or feature deliniation isn't as good as would perhaps have been expected from this configuration? For comparison here is a simple 60min of Lum on the trio with a 6" F7.5 1140mm FL scope from suburban skies (ignore the un-flatted dust donnuts) with only DDP applied and no other processing....there isn't much difference in the res to me?
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...54137/original
Don't get me wrong it is a pleasing image and well worth the look (thanks) but it's just not what I would be happy with for the cost of producing it, hope that doesn't sound too rude..?
again had it not been done with an expensive Pro outfit I wouldn't have been so critical and many will find it pretty good anyway (cause it is) but in this case when you are using the best, paying for it and promoting it, hey, we wanna see the bluddy best man!
Mike