[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by richardo

Yes happy new year there big fella!!
Our band had a late one on the night, ah morning I should say but managed to pull my carcass off the lounge on the 1st to get a last bit of colour to my M78.
Clearish and blowing it's guts out, typical

Man this is a great start to the year for you Migel!
Shizen, that field is sooooo big with so much to see.
Looks great on my 24" Dell I must say.
This is one hell of an extensive object that small chipped folk like me still dream about even with a 60c..

Very impressive.

Hope this year will see you able to get out more than last.

Thanks for sharing your, well, almost sober evening out.

I'm working on some lum on Herschells Ray at the mo but don't hold no candle on this

All the best for now
Rich

Thanks Richard glad you liked it

WE have similar frustrations it seems? Think we need to move inland a bit further

Originally Posted by iceman

Stunning image, Mike. The new location looks great too. Where abouts is it?

Bob and Pat should be congratulated

You also must've been busy to take and process and present that image in only 2 days.. you must've rushed the processing.. Surely there's a repro coming in the next week or so..

Yes nice spot some 6km North West of Kurri Kurri, not as dark as Wiruna but much better than Newcastle city suburbs and still convenient(ish) so I can get there on a Friday after work and setup before dark and have two days available without taking leave...still a pain packing, seting-up, pulling down, loading car, unpacking car, drying out dew, putting away.......

Originally Posted by rat156

Hi Mike,

Yes, very nice indeed.

Looks a little too blue on my laptop screen (Which is not 21 or 22"). Did you do this to accentuate the different colours of the SNR? Not saying it's bad or anything, just different.

This is taken with your still relatively new camera isn't it? You certainly seem to have mastered that beastie. I just want enough clear nights to complete an NGC1532 image I've started.

Cheers
Stuart

Dunno Stu, seems I like the blue glow/misty look it created, seemd to fit the region better than other settings of levels and colour balance..? My processing is like cooking from scratch ie I do it very much by feel, I am very untechnical in my processing approach compared to some. I add a bit of this, stand back, chop a bit of that, taste, blend a bit of that, stand back, stir, taste, blend again then bring to boil, taste again....and voila!

I have been using the big black FLI Proline 11002 for over a year and a half now and it really is a great easy to use beast. On new years eve it was stiull 22 degC at 9.00pm and the camera slammed down to -35C in a few minutes and held it there all night without budging with no buckets, pumps and tubes etc . The raw images are very clean at -35C for a KAI chip and calibrate perfectly with a set of darks and flat darks I took over a year ago now (I pretty much only use 10min exp)

Originally Posted by Tinker

Excellent picture Mike, tonnes of detail to get lost in.

I only found out about this SNR a few weeks ago, it's a biggy, suits your camera nicely!

Do you have the coordinates of where you centred you shots? Trying to work out the best way to shoot this one too.

Good start to '09

Joe

Hi Joe, I knew roughly were the region was, pointed at the area then slewed around at bin 3X3 for a bit rotating the camera until I framed it just the way I liked it...it's in Vela, does that help?

Originally Posted by multiweb

Looks great Mike! Way to go. That's a huge field for sure. Did you do a mosaic?

No moazaic Marc, thi is the native 1.8deg X 1.2deg FOV very tiny amount of cropping after registration of channels.

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Gee, thanks for the custom zoom ins Mike, much appreciated .

Very nice ofcourse, and even better close up, but the levels are all over the place .

Im guessing you do that on purpose for that soft natural look, with a sight blue background, and it works quite well, but you lose a bit of punch.

This tweak was simply level shift to the start of each histogram curve. Its very subjective of course, cant say its "better".

Come to think of it, the way you handle levels seems to have worked to advantage in this case

Yep, always thinking of my mate Freddo

Yeh, like I said to Stuart, I work until I'm happy with it and then let it be (well until the occassional repro seems necessary ). I did various tweeks like yours but didn't like them, I like the soft natural glow revealing the blue gives the region, seems to fit an old tenuous supernova superimpossed on other emission and refection nebulosity to me..?

Also depends on your moniter and room lighting, right now in a semi naturally lit room it looks ok to me..? Your eyes change too...boody crazy really. As you saw at the Sydney Observatory, it is in the "printing" that it truly counts in the end though...

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Nicely done Mike.

Not teaching you how to suck eggs, but have you used CS3's "save for web and devices" option?

Makes .jpg files much smaller. Even at very high quality, your full res image saves down to 3.9 meg.

Cheers

No worries Peter, cheers, only just found out about that function yesterday on the ASNSW imaging list will use it in future.

Originally Posted by Phil

If you don't mind i downloaded the photo and set it as my desktop.
Love it.
Phil

Ah, that will be..?..$3.95...thanks. or a working 12" F3.8 astrograph will suffice instead if you are short of cash?

Originally Posted by RB

Beautiful work Mike, lovely colours and detail.

The new location looks like a beautiful place too.

HNY.

Yahsu Andrew

Originally Posted by Hagar

Very nice very fine filaments in this area captured very nicely.

Yes Doug they are beautiful, a faster bigger aperture and true dark skies would be great!

Originally Posted by bluescope

Unusual target captured very well Mike ... although I too think it's a little strong on the background blue ... not a criticism just a matter of opinion.
Happy New Year !

No worries Steve I tried other combo's but kept coming back to the soft natural blue glow..? perhaps I have gone blue raving ...?