House of the Dragons

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Hi all - my rendition of the Fighting Dragons of Ara (including the Dragon's Egg NGC 6164/5).

This is probably my longest integration yet, about 7 hours in total.
Roughly 6 hours of that was through an Antlia 5nm Dual-Band filter presented as HOO and an hour of unfiltered OSC for the stars. Once again I used an AT65EDQ refractor which has a nice wide field and in-built flattener, (even if it's a bit slow at f6.5) and a ZWO 2600mc Pro. It was captured from my Sydney backyard under Bortle 7 skies.

I realise this is a very commonly imaged object but its only my second attempt at capturing it and my first using just an Ha filter + OSC was pretty underwhelming. It really does need the OIII for that contrast.

A higher res (2K) version can be found here at: Astrobin

C & C welcome as always.

Pete

[AdamJL]

Very nice, Pete!
Could do with either a bit more integration time or noise reduction, but it's lovely. Nice to see the Dragon Egg in there too.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Overall a fabulous looking image Pete, probably the best framing for the area too, fitting in the magic dragon egg/purl is nice work and really sets the scene. One minor thing, I can't workout what the graininess is, ie. whether it is noise or actually stars suppressed in processing

Either way great looking image

Mike

[gregbradley]

Remarkable resolution from a 65mm scope.

The small amount of graininess, which I must say I did not notice at first, is probably the small aperture.

These small pixel cameras are really resolving at a level that only larger refractors could do not that long ago.

I like the colour scheme.

Greg.

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by AdamJL

Very nice, Pete!
Could do with either a bit more integration time or noise reduction, but it's lovely. Nice to see the Dragon Egg in there too.

Thanks Adam! I did use a small amount of (masked) NR but tried not to overdo it....

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Overall a fabulous looking image Pete, probably the best framing for the area too, fitting in the magic dragon egg/purl is nice work and really sets the scene. One minor thing, I can't workout what the graininess is, ie. whether it is noise or actually stars suppressed in processing

Either way great looking image

Mike

Thanks Mike!

Appreciate the honest feedback guys. I think the graininess might be caused by a flaw in my processing workflow for these types of images (perhaps when I add in the RGB stars but not 100% sure ). I noticed it quite strongly in my Statue of Liberty image but put it down to the relatively short integration time in that image. I'll revisit the processing on this one & see if I can find out what's going on.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Remarkable resolution from a 65mm scope.

The small amount of graininess, which I must say I did not notice at first, is probably the small aperture.

These small pixel cameras are really resolving at a level that only larger refractors could do not that long ago.

I like the colour scheme.

Greg.

Thanks Greg!
I noticed the graininess with my Statue of Liberty image which I took with the MN190 so at this stage I think it might be down to processing. The little AT65EDQ is no Tak but it's a sharp little scope (at least when focuser-sag is eliminated )

[Startrek (Martin)]

Your kidding aren’t you , surely you used a 2600MM and filters
Seriously I don’t know how you extracted so much signal from the 2600MC and a dual band filter , maybe I should upgrade from my 7nm L Extreme to 5nm Antlier Golden filter ?
Looks like a Mono NB image
Well done !!
Martin

[Shiraz (Ray)]

That's a really attractive image. You and others have commented on the graininess... might be able to smooth that out a bit, but I'd be careful to keep away from a "plastic" rendition. Cheers Ray

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Very nice work Pete with the small aperture and OSC camera. The benefit of your set up of course is the lovely wide field. A great composition that includes lots of detail and colour.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

An aesthetically very pleasing image Pete! Good framing and pleasing colours without being overstated. Well done!

[Nikolas (Nik)]

That antlia gold filter seems to be a better filter than the L-Extreme

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by Startrek

Your kidding aren’t you , surely you used a 2600MM and filters
Seriously I don’t know how you extracted so much signal from the 2600MC and a dual band filter , maybe I should upgrade from my 7nm L Extreme to 5nm Antlier Golden filter ?
Looks like a Mono NB image
Well done !!
Martin

Thanks Martin that's very kind.

I push my data pretty hard during processing - sometimes too hard. Without having a permanent setup and being city bound most of the time I feel it's a struggle for every photon I capture so want to make the most of it.
Ideally I'd like to do more natural Ha/OIII/RGB blends but I need more access to dark skies for that. I'm still experimenting a bit about what can be achieved with my current setups.

Originally Posted by Shiraz

That's a really attractive image. You and others have commented on the graininess... might be able to smooth that out a bit, but I'd be careful to keep away from a "plastic" rendition. Cheers Ray

Thanks Ray - I tried re-blending the RGB stars but it didn't make as big a difference as I thought so I'm now in the process of doing a full repro.
I don't use Topaz but I can still see that overdoing NR can give an unrealistic look to the image.

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

Very nice work Pete with the small aperture and OSC camera. The benefit of your set up of course is the lovely wide field. A great composition that includes lots of detail and colour.

Thanks Rodney!

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

An aesthetically very pleasing image Pete! Good framing and pleasing colours without being overstated. Well done!

Much appreciated Marcus!

Originally Posted by Nikolas

That antlia gold filter seems to be a better filter than the L-Extreme

I suspect it might be in some respects Nik (which is why I chose it) but how much better? Worth the extra cost?

[Retrograde (Pete)]

I've done a repro on this and managed to improve, but not eliminate, the graininess. This perhaps comes at the cost of a slight loss of detail.
Even after 6 hours of narrowband there was quite a lot of noise in the OIII in particular. It's something I'll have to pay more attention to going forward.

Link to the latest rev on AB here:Astrobin Latest rev (and in the original post).

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Originally Posted by Retrograde

I suspect it might be in some respects Nik (which is why I chose it) but how much better? Worth the extra cost?

If it means no halos and extra contrast then maybe