Another M16

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Seeing wasn't great Monday night and a light polluted Melbourne front yard was never going to produce a great first time attempt at M16. I took 24 x 50 sec UVIR cut at 800iso and 16 x 50 sec CLS at 1600iso unguided through the Esprit 100 with the Canon modded 550d. A total of 33mins.

The first shot was produced by creating a luminance channel from the CLS subs and combining it with the UVIR cut subs. The second was substituting the red channel of the UVIR cut subs with the red channel from the CLS subs.

I think I prefer the one using the luminance layer.

[Imme (Jon)]

Great work mike....top effort for a shot of m16 from the burbs.

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Imme

Great work mike....top effort for a shot of m16 from the burbs.

Thanks Jon, nowhere as good as your great shot a few weeks back. That was a real gem. I might have to come up and visit your dark skies soon, the light pollution down here just keeps making it more difficult each year. From where I am, once these objects pass the meridia, they head straight into the Melbourne sky glow.

[Imme (Jon)]

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Thanks Jon, nowhere as good as your great shot a few weeks back. That was a real gem. I might have to come up and visit your dark skies soon, the light pollution down here just keeps making it more difficult each year. From where I am, once these objects pass the meridia, they head straight into the Melbourne sky glow.

No worries at all mike. You’re welcome up here if I am home or not!

Dark skies and too much money spent is what has me producing some good shots mate.....well, it was either update my motorbike or buy a good camera/scope. Too many injuries from riding so I went the scope.
To be honest though it’s also the time I can put in. Being able to tweak the scope, mount, pa, etc and not have to tear it down every night makes a hell of a difference. Allows you to get the most out of it......oh, and guiding, guiding helps!
On that, when are you and anth taking the step?

[Mickoid (Michael)]

We'll you're certainly reaping the benefits of good gear now Jon. It was only a short time ago when you were in awe of my astro shots. Now I'm in awe of yours, you've learnt quickly and taken full advantage of your great site and set up. Regarding guiding, where does it end? More money! Guiding camera, maybe an astro camera, mono, osc? I'll wait a while and continue challenging myself with what I've got. I know it's the way to go if I want to improve my images, however I'm not able to justify spending the cash at this stage. I think anth feels the same.

[xelasnave]

A nice image.
Do you use a focuser mask yet...
I found something in sharp cap that really helps getting focus near perfect...not sure if you can run your camera through it but I thought I was getting good focus but using sharpcaps focuser assistant blew me away.

I did not want to go narrow band because it all seemed too much but the extra detail has really surprised me so at least start saving for one.
I was going to get a 100mm esprit but now I am not so sure given the results the little 80mm produce...
It will be interesting to run the cooled camera on the eight inch.
Anyways you are doing great.
Alex

[xelasnave]

You may have said it but how do you process your images? What software?
alex

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

You may have said it but how do you process your images? What software?
alex

Just DSS and Photoshop 4.0, yes that's not a typo error, I've been using this version of Photoshop for over 20 years and I still don't use everything it can do. It satisfies all my requirements and I'm in no hurry to upgrade it. It even works on Windows 10!

[xelasnave]

Is there something in your photoshop to reduce star size?

Startools is relatively cheap..I think it was $60.

It makes ever so minor adjustments but they all seem to add up..
I takes ages however to do things which is painful.

Star tools has a tool called de con or deconvolution which reduces star size which is handy. I am still not clever with it but it will be a game changer I feel...

It also has a star repair that cures stair trailing if your alignment is off ... it seems that is not cricket but I like what it does...

In GIMP there is an erode feature which sometimes work for me and other times not.

I am sure a decade ago the was something in photoshop that we would reduce star size..it must be in photoshop that was all we used

...anyways my point is if you can get stars a little smaller it is not as easy to notice if other things are a little out of focus.. like nebula it harder to notice and if the stars seem ok I think the brain thinks all is good...probably not cricket but you do what you can I guess.
alex

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Nice Michael. I like the one on the left.
As Alex said startools is great and doesn't cost the earth - but seems like you have photoshop going well