Ugly? Not thisthh little black duck!

[David Fitz-Henr]

Well, a swan actually ... and multi-hued rather than black. Sorry, it's late and I'm in a Daffy mood - well, enough poor humour and on with the show ...
I took the image data for this before and over the long weekend back in June. The sky quality was quite good, and I managed to keep the focuser / camera flexure under reasonable control although I did end up throwing out some subs (hence why less red and blue to green subs). This represents my best effort to date; I managed to keep the star halos to a minimum as well. It looks better on my notebook than my main monitor, but hopefully that is because my main monitor is getting old and lacks bit depth and it will look good to you all.

(L+Ha)RGB Image
L-12x10mins, Ha-9x10mins, R-6x10mins, G-9x10mins, B-6x10mins
All at -20C on my Paramount / STL-11000 / home made 200mm Newtonian.

Darks, flat fields and processed in CCDStack / Registar / Photoshop.

Anyway, interested to hear your opinions ...

Large Image:
http://www.pbase.com/david_fitz_henr...72744/original

Small Image:
http://www.pbase.com/david_fitz_henr...26772744/large

[Jaybee (John)]

Wow!
Beautiful Image David
Looks almost 3 dimensional with out have to stand on one leg and look cross eyed at the screen!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Yeh, that's pretty dam good Dave, lovely colours and nice smooth look without looking too plastic.

The only thing I would comment on is that while there are no ugly black rings around the stars or anything like that, the sharpenning/decon (?) used is perhaps just a little obvious as the stars have sharp edges and the nebula "looks" sharpenned.

But other than that minor point, it's a fantastic image

Mike

[Tom Davis (Tom)]

Very pretty palette!

Tom

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great picture David. Lovely colours abd very sharp details. Nice.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Wow David, that's a very fine image you got there - nice colours and great detail!! Hey, you must have learned some great tips from the master!!

Mikes right, your stars do have a slight sharp edge to them though - a minor critique. It might be a bit too blue too, but that could be a personal taste thing. The good news is there is more nebula extension in your data - do a quick shadow highlight and I'll bet you get a surprise.

Cheers, Marcus

[TrevorW]

Very good David well done

[Hagar (Doug)]

Loverly big image of the Swan David. Really looks nice and clean, sharp and bright image. Very very well done. Bugger I want a PME.
She who must be obeyed will no doubt have something to say about this idea.

[David Fitz-Henr]

Thanks John, Mike, Tom, Marc, Marcus, Trevor & Doug !!
I've addressed a couple of the points raised by Mike and Marcus with a slightly tweaked image here (the other images are still there at the other links for comparison):

Large:
http://www.pbase.com/image/126802171/original

Small:
http://www.pbase.com/image/126802171/large

I had been quite aggressive in reducing star halos after a nasty beginner's experience with my Eta Carina image. Probably a bit much, so I undid the some of the latter star curve adjustments in the above images. The brighter stars are still a bit harsh; probably the result of earlier star selection layers that were too tight around the stars. I may do a repro at a later stage, but this will do for now I think. Thanks also to Marc (Multiweb) for his tutorial which gave me a few good tips as well.

I also did a final Highlights / Shadows to bring out the fainter nebulosity as per Marcus's suggestion. I'm not sure about it being too blue though Marcus - the colour balance seems reasonable when you look at the star colours (actually many stars are a bit red but that maybe due to the nebula), and it looks pretty If I do a repro later I may have a play with it ...

[gregbradley]

Oooh I like that. Nicely setup Newt is a marvellous imaging instrument.

I like the way you have a nice gamut of subtle shades there whereas M17 is often portrayed as all red (including my own versions to date of this). There is definitely an O111 component to this neb and its more bluish with a touch of white in there as well as the dominant shades of red.

Also nice star colours and nicely detailed and sharp.

Greg.

[TheDecepticon]

Very nice. I like the star colours.