M20... anothery

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi all,
Yeah, I know, another M20.... but you gotta love this object.. so bright, so many things to see...

Any way, been a while since I posted anything.
Weather has been cloudy for almost the past month.

Hope you folks on the NSW coast are all ok with your radical weather!


Had some lum on this for a while and needed a bit more plus
some colour.
Sneeked inbetween clouds last night and tonight wasn't too bad
for collecting some quick colour.
Have just completed my composite tube for rigidity and a few
other mods to the accessory plate, the mount plate isn't quite
where it should be and is causing weight issues in certain areas
of the sky... well, untill I sort it in a day or so.
Tube has worked out well and find there is no flex, so that's one thing
out of the way.
I should be able to guide a whole lot better now.

Not a great deal of data on this, but didn't turn out too bad for what it is.
http://www.baytop-observatory.com/

Cheers guys for the great images.. kept me going...

All the best
Rich

[jase (Jason)]

Rich,

That is grand mate, really grand.

Very nice colour balance and saturation. Highlights are soft and don’t look overly processed to a plastic appearance. I like the composition with the two diffraction spiked stars. I wonder what the object would have looked like if you had gone a more deeper (more subs or longer exposures – probably the latter). Though I do recall you mentioning your seeing conditions weren’t the best for longer exposures. Do you mildly blur your RGB information? This would assist in noise reduction in the fainter areas and you’d need to solely rely on you luminance for detail.

Look forward to seeing more of your work.

[richardo (Rich)]

Hey thanks there Jase!

It really was just to finish up that Lum data I had laying around from my old tube.... plus to give me something to play with so I'm not climbing walls in withdrawl...
The diffraction spikes were out of alignment from old to new tube, so had to clone stamp the old ones out in PS.

The seeing here does actually allow for long exposures, gets very clear on the right nights, however it looks like this start we're having to winter here is quite poor... so gotta grab what I can when I can.... in between cloud banks.
Now I have the flexure sorted with the tube and the differential flexure between Newt and guide scope gone, will be able to go out further with fainter objects.... that's where I'm heading, to get this setup to where i walk out and it all happens... looking good though.
The mounting plate underneath my accessory plate is not exactly where it should be for balance, but made do for testing to see how things were. This I will remedy... now the weather is crap, good inspiration !!

I do use quite a bit of noise reduction on RGB composites, then add the Lum.....but I find it all depends on how much data and how clean the straight RGB composite is. Neat image is what I use in PS.
I do a little after with the Lrgb if it looks a bit grainy, but with me, I like a tad of noise to leave those fine BG stars looking relatively clean. I always star mask or object mask via layering and sharpen specifically what I want to stand out.... but noise reduction amount is usually a trade off... between too plastic an appearance or stars too stark.

I would have loved to have got out to 5 or 6 mins to see what this scope can pull in, but as is, just not ready yet.... but it's coming.
Heaps more data to the lum would have been nice, as this can add... but I tend to wait for those really nice transparent nights when taking lum subs.... sometimes less can be better when mixing top nights with mediocre ones.

Any way, on my way out to pull down the scope and do the deed to the mounting plate right now actually.

So stayed tuned for deeper stuff...

Thanks again for taking a look Jase, appreciate the comments.

All the best
Rich

[bluescope]

Very nice Rick, that 10 inch of yours is certainly good for imaging !

[2020BC (Bill Christie)]

Wonderful. This is one of the better shots of M20 that I've seen. Congrats.

[spearo (Frank)]

Rich,this is superb, excellent capture of the blue without burning the pinkish nebula.
just amazing!
top notch
well done mate!
congrats!
frank
T

[Ric]

A great image Rich, very sharp and detailed. The dark dust lanes look superb.

Cheers

[Garyh]

mmmmm...more eyecandy there Rich..
Very nicely balanced colors and the dust lanes etc stand out just right. The very core is not overdone and overly bright like on a lot of pics..
Welldone..
Cheers Gary

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Wonderful image!

May i suggest setting all your images to "border='0'" or if yo use css "img { border: none; }". That will ge rdd of the bad-looking blue borders in hyperlinked ages.

[richardo (Rich)]

Originally Posted by bluescope

Very nice Rick, that 10 inch of yours is certainly good for imaging !

Thanks there Steve, yes a lovely couple of mirrors certainly help!

Originally Posted by 2020BC

Wonderful. This is one of the better shots of M20 that I've seen. Congrats.

Hey cheers for saying so Bill !

Originally Posted by spearo

Rich,this is superb, excellent capture of the blue without burning the pinkish nebula.
just amazing!
top notch
well done mate!
congrats!
frank
T

Hi Frank, thanks very much!! I too have seen many images on this object where everything is blown out to the centre.
A challenge at times with certain objects.

Originally Posted by Ric

A great image Rich, very sharp and detailed. The dark dust lanes look superb.

Cheers

Thanks for that Ric !!

Originally Posted by Garyh

mmmmm...more eyecandy there Rich..
Very nicely balanced colors and the dust lanes etc stand out just right. The very core is not overdone and overly bright like on a lot of pics..
Welldone..
Cheers Gary

Thanks Gaz, always a treat to image this object for it's colours and detail.

Originally Posted by Dr Nick

Wonderful image!

May i suggest setting all your images to "border='0'" or if yo use css "img { border: none; }". That will ge rdd of the bad-looking blue borders in hyperlinked ages.

Thanks Nick!
Will have a look at my picture borders, they do look a bit gordy.... even in Mozilla.

Thanks again to all for taking the time to look at my image.

All the best
Rich