Eye in the sky - Helix neb -

[Garyh]

Hi all again..
Its been rather clear up here lately although a bit smokey. Have imaged something nearly every night so lots of late nights for me,,well midnight is late to me these days.. with the kids waking us up at first light..
Anyways heres my attempt at the Helix planetary neb with my 6" newt from the night before..Seeing was average but no cloud just smoke.
image is 25 x 3 min at iso 1600 with my canon 300d.
Stars are not quiet round and there was a lot of noise to remove due to it being rather warm and using iso 1600. Have been experimenting iso 1600 with mixed results..
I am quiet happy with the final image and is much better than other goes in the past....
All comments most welcome!
cheers Gary

[Dennis]

An excellent image Gary, especially given the high ISO and temperature. There is a slight softening/smoothing visible due to the (aggressive?) noise reduction you had to apply, but none the less, this is a beautiful image and one that I would be very happy with! Well done!

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy (David)]

very noice, and the outer arc!! Well done mate!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Its a beauty Gary.
Thanks for pointing out the arc Dave, I wouldn't have looked for it otherwise.

[Tamtarn]

Looks like the 1600 ISO worked a treat Gary. That's an impressive image and as Houghy pointed out you've captured the outer arc as well.

Fantastic imaging

[erick (Eric)]

Beautiful to look at. Thanks!

[citivolus (Ric)]

I gave it a stretch and sure enough, upper and lower arcs. I never new they were there.

Nice shot

Eric

[leon]

Cant complain about that one Gary, nice work mate.

Leon

[Lee]

Beautiful work Gary.....

[jase (Jason)]

Gary,
A very well composed image with vibrant colours. Very pleasing. I do agree with Dennis though - I think the noise reduction has caused a lost of detail. I'd expect you may have picked up some faint cometary globs, but these are not present. You may want to investigate selection techniques such as the colour range tool and feathering so you are only smoothing the dim noisy areas but leaving the show piece/focus point alone. Well done.

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Looks a little soft but still a beautiful image! great work!

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

great shott!! nicely captured there gary. you were getting quiet i knew you were up to something big hehe

[Garyh]

Sorry for mot getting back sooner but have just got back home from a trip!
Thanks everyone for taking the time to look and comment

Originally Posted by Dennis

An excellent image Gary, especially given the high ISO and temperature. There is a slight softening/smoothing visible due to the (aggressive?) noise reduction you had to apply, but none the less, this is a beautiful image and one that I would be very happy with! Well done!

Cheers

Dennis

Thanks Dennis, I do agree with what you have said. Got the focus and the guiding pretty good and happy with my color balance but might have processed it a bit better to try and keep some of the finer details.
Cheers Gary

Originally Posted by jase

Gary,
A very well composed image with vibrant colours. Very pleasing. I do agree with Dennis though - I think the noise reduction has caused a lost of detail. I'd expect you may have picked up some faint cometary globs, but these are not present. You may want to investigate selection techniques such as the colour range tool and feathering so you are only smoothing the dim noisy areas but leaving the show piece/focus point alone. Well done.

thanks Jase for that info! I shall give it another go and try to mask the neb from my aggressive noise removal.
thanks again Gary

Originally Posted by EzyStyles

great shott!! nicely captured there gary. you were getting quiet i knew you were up to something big hehe

cheers Eric, me up to something big? when I can access the HST I will give you real big!!
Seriously, thanks and I shall be posting a few more images soon as the weather has been kind up here the last few days..

I posted the final stacked image after Deepskystacker has done its magic so you can see what sort of noise I had to remove. Feel free to have a go at it or advice to what else I could do to remove it.
cheers Gary

[RB (Andrew)]

You've done well Gary.
I like the colours and looking at the final stack image I can appriciate the difficulty you've had in processing the noise out.

Looking forward to the rest of the images too.

Cheers.