This is the main shot I went for at the SPSP. Got 20h on it across 4 nights from Wednesday to Saturday night and a bunch of other filler shots waiting for Antares to get high enough around 10pm each night.
Taken with my old argon purged and electrical tape driven QHY8 OSC, an FSQ106N at prime focus (absolutely love this scope) on a G11. Guided with PHD on a lodestar/OAG and captured with Nebulosity 2.5. I did 80x900s. Seeing was ranging from excellent to very good across the week. 20kt jetstream up to 40kt on Saturday so very still on average. Transparency was ok but we got a lot wetter Friday and Saturday nights.
I used CCD Stack to calibrate, PI to bayer drizzle and do a final drizzle integration as I had enough subs to "plug the holes" left behind the debayering process. It worked remarkably well. My image scale is 3.02asp because of the short FL and the 7.8um pixels of my camera. Bayer drizzling gives me the equivalent of 1.5asp which gets rid of square stars. As I kept dithering during data acquisition. Although CPU intensive it helped a lot at integration time. Dithering also does wonders with data rejection and noise control.
I didn't do any sharpening or deconvolution as the data was good to start with. It might look a little soft and the stars a bit tiny but that's how it came out of the raw fits. Still a little noisy in the darker areas. I used Goodlook for the color balance.
I have various versions online that are too big to upload here.
Great shot Marc, subtle and delicate...and look at those lovely wide field stars ...I'm really looking forward to getting my FSQEDX4 soon, just organising rings and OAG's at the moment ..soon....patient Mike, patient
Great shot Marc, subtle and delicate...and look at those lovely wide field stars ...I'm really looking forward to getting my FSQEDX4 soon, just organising rings and OAG's at the moment ..soon....patient Mike, patient
Mike
Thanks Mike. You'll love it. Best thing since sliced bread.
Very smooth and subtle Marc. Really like it.
Was good to meet you again at SPSP if only briefly. We had a good few clear nights this year too which is always good.
Very smooth and subtle Marc. Really like it.
Was good to meet you again at SPSP if only briefly. We had a good few clear nights this year too which is always good.
Thanks a lot Pete. Yeah we really had a good run this year. Lot of fun and too short.
A gorgeous image, Marc, and a pleasure to look at. Not strident but subtly nuanced.
The nebulosity in the centre says it all: so thick that there are no stars visible behind it at all, but lit from the front by one or two brilliant beacons. Elsewhere, threaded by delicate smoky wisps.
Subtle, delicate, ethereal - maybe shows people like (well -er, ahem) me that not all astro images need to have big, bold punch to be beautiful.
Would love to that really big on the wall, and I love all those old yellow stars
A gorgeous image, Marc, and a pleasure to look at. Not strident but subtly nuanced.
The nebulosity in the centre says it all: so thick that there are no stars visible behind it at all, but lit from the front by one or two brilliant beacons. Elsewhere, threaded by delicate smoky wisps.
Thanks a lot Mike. Glad you like it. I had a look at Rolf's magnificent shot of the same area as a reference. Aperture wins but I did get the stars in the same spots more or less
Catch up soon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by atalas
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Subtle, delicate, ethereal - maybe shows people like (well -er, ahem) me that not all astro images need to have big, bold punch to be beautiful.
Would love to that really big on the wall, and I love all those old yellow stars
Thanks Andy. RGB has its advantages and when you have the opportunity to get out to dark skies then you can make the most of it. In particular reflection nebulae and dust show up nicely in color and all this info gets lost in NB.
NB is a different deal as you can use arbitrary color palettes. If you like punch in your pics then go for it. It's your pic and your rendition. As long as you work out the ratio between the various emission lines to be close to the reality.
You may find yourself slowly dialing down your processing in time as your processing style evolves and staying closer to the data. It's certainly been the case with me. But in the end it's whatever floats your boat and your interpretation.
...I'm really looking forward to getting my FSQEDX4 soon, just organising rings and OAG's at the moment 
