A seagull head & an Eta - one night out.

[alpal]

Last night I had a go at the head of the Seagull nebula.
2 hours & 40 minutes of data.
I was surprised at how dim it is.
Even with all sub frames binned 2x2 the colours were very noisy.
I did the colour & luminance at 5 minutes & the Ha frames at 10 minutes.
I think I needed to do 10 minute colour frames.

On the contrary - Eta Carinae came out with such wonderful detail
with just ONE FRAME 10 minutes of Ha binned 1x1.
Eta Carinae really is super bright.

Larger version on my flickr photos.
Taken with an 8" f6 Newt & QHY9 mono.

Any comments welcome.

[Paul Haese]

The Seagull head is pretty dim but you have captured it well. More subs will smooth out the noise but overall this is a very pleasing looking image. Both images look good.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

nice work allan, good to hear you've managed to get some more imaging time!

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

I like yours better than the ESO's. http://www.space.com/19412-close-up-...ll-nebula.html

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Two very attractive images Allan. regards Ray

[alpal]

Thanks guys for those nice comments.
I was debating with myself to even show my Seagull attempt here.
I was blown away by the Eta image - so good for one frame!

Yes Paul - more sub frames would help.
I think that next time I'll do really long single frames-
say 15 minutes of colour binned 2x2.
Stacking images was good in my DSLR days where I say
had 49 x 3 minute frames & I could get 1/7th the noise by stacking
but with a cooled mono & a sort of narrow band = colour filters,
I am wondering whether a long sub frame or 2 would be better?

Kevin - I think the ESO one is much better.

Just out of interest - here is the Ha result that I used for some of the luminance.
It was 5 frames at 10 minutes each binned 2x2 & processed with the Wavelet noise filter in Fitswork4.
I think the Ha version looks more real & pleasing?

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

The Seagull's head is a very nice looking nebula and looks good when imaged with nice sharpness as you have here Allan not too bad for puny data either

Mike

[alpal]

Thanks Mike - your Seagull image is so good compared to mine
but I do have smaller stars - bit of help from Fitswork4 though.

I couldn't help myself -
I had to re-process using the Ha frame below to better extent.
I used some selected areas -
digging out the details as per Ken Crawford & brightened them.
I also added the RGB star colours & boosted them.
I cut down on the saturation & vibrance.
Hopefully I didn't smooth it too much & lose detail?
This target needs a lot of data with my system.
better luck next time.

Larger version on flickr.

[Ross G]

Hi Allan,

Two great looking photos.

I love the Seagull.

Well done!

Ross.