NGC 2244 Rosette Nebula

[AstroTom (Tom)]

Hi All,

I thought I would post my first attempt at the Rosette Nebula from this last weekend. This image is composed of:

23 x 5 min guided subs
12 x Dark Frames
20 x Bias Frames

I took a large amount of bias frames as it was a mild night and from the later subs you coudl see a lot of thermal nmiose in the photo. Luckily the bias frames have removed this in the stacking process.

The equipment used was the Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120, AZEQ6 mount, Canon EOS 600D (modded), Orion ST80 guidescope and Skywatcher Synguider.

Stacked the image in DSS and processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Anyway pretty pleased with this. I'm happy for an7yone to give me any tips on how I could improve the processing.

Regards,

Tom

[RickS (Rick)]

Nice detail, Tom. I'd have a go at improving the star colour next.

Cheers,
Rick.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

looking good Tom, I would work on taking flats they make a massive difference to processing and the outcome.

cheers

russ

[raymo]

Good effort Tom; I would take note of Russ regarding flats.Providing that
your darks match your lights, biases serve little purpose, as darks already
contain bias data.
raymo

[AstroTom (Tom)]

Thanks Everyone for your comments. I will aim to take flats next time out.

I was trying to get the star colour more realistic i.e. white stars. When I do playa round I end changing the whole colour of the nebula. I also have used the Noel Carboni tools as well. Does anyone have any other tips for changing the star colours whilst leaving the nebula as is? I'm thinking som kind of mask in PS.

Anyway grateful for any advice.

Regards,

Tom

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Nice work Tom!

Originally Posted by AstroTom

I was trying to get the star colour more realistic i.e. white stars. When I do playa round I end changing the whole colour of the nebula. I also have used the Noel Carboni tools as well. Does anyone have any other tips for changing the star colours whilst leaving the nebula as is? I'm thinking som kind of mask in PS.

Anyway grateful for any advice.

Regards,

Tom

Check out http://www.atalas.net
Louie has some excellent tutorials here regarding PS Astro processing (including a star-colour one)

Pete

[5ash (Philip)]

Originally Posted by AstroTom

Thanks Everyone for your comments. I will aim to take flats next time out.

I was trying to get the star colour more realistic i.e. white stars.

Tom

Hi Tom, not sure what's realistic about white stars? As a guide the larger star top left in the central cluster comes out quite orange in my photos of this subject. Also the nebula is redder. Hope this helps. Lots of detail there.
Regards philip