Not another keyhole!

[Garyh]

Hi folks,
Well isn`t it great to see some blue skies and some stars again Been over 2 weeks here so was getting a little bored. Also my pc decided to die the other day with that puffy cap disease they get when they age..managed to find some similar ones on some other dead boards and got it back to life....
Anyways here is my attempt at the keyhole region near Eta Carina.
Must be that time of the year for this.....
Seeing was poor but the air was very transparent.
Ok, image is 22 x 150 sec at iso 400 with 6" f/5.6 newt and Canon 300D.
Came out fairly well considering the seeing which softened things a bit, Will have to wait for better seeing later on and redo.
Image is a 100% crop of the original.
All comments welcomed guys and Gals..
File around 400kb in size.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads...ta-22stack.jpg

Thanks for looking
Gary

[avandonk]

Gary I never tire of seeing this region of sky as no one has a monopoly on THE definitive image. The detail is very good as are the colours. It shows careful attention to all the variables.

Why dont you try a series of exposures and try doing a HDR image. You will find the brighter stars end up smaller and coloured and the nebular detail even better. I would be interested to see if those pesky (to me) diffraction spikes are also suppressed.

Bert

[Alchemy (Clive)]

nice as pretty much all your pics are..... hows the 8 inch project going?

clive.

[iceman (Mike)]

Beautiful as usual, Gary. Lovely colours in the nebula and love the orange stars.

more please!

[renormalised (Carl)]

If you look through the Keyhole, I wonder what you'll see

Unless you get poked in the eye by the "Ol' Boy"

Nice piccie, Gary

[bluescope]

Yep very similar composition to mine Gary .... good work.

Did you use a barlow or something because it seems like a small f.o.v. for a 6" newt with a 300D.

[Ric]

Great image Gary, a fantastic image showing some great detail and colour.

Cheers

[jase (Jason)]

Lovely work Gary. Impressive details and colour balance looks spot on. A very minor comment. I found that by raising the black point on the red channel by ~11 points, it re-emphasised the blue hues in some of the stars and took away the subtle red tint. Such an adjustment is minor and a matter of personal preference. If possible, its good to get your black point across the RGB channels equal/in-alignment. It makes subsequent colour balance tweaks easier. A stunning image regardless. Well done.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Excellent job on this one Gary, a very busy scene with some lovely colour hues, nice work.

Do you have a picture of your 6" setup?

Mike

[Garyh]

Originally Posted by avandonk

Gary I never tire of seeing this region of sky as no one has a monopoly on THE definitive image. The detail is very good as are the colours. It shows careful attention to all the variables.

Why dont you try a series of exposures and try doing a HDR image. You will find the brighter stars end up smaller and coloured and the nebular detail even better. I would be interested to see if those pesky (to me) diffraction spikes are also suppressed.

Bert

Thanks Bert, took a bit of tweaking but I am quiet happy with it.
I have EasyHDR but I still havn`t yet worked out how to us it....
Do you know any links to a tutorial for astro work? that would come in handy..
Thanks again Bert...

Originally Posted by Alchemy

nice as pretty much all your pics are..... hows the 8 inch project going?

clive.

Thanks Clive...
The 8" is getting there slowly but is still a jumble of pieces...still need a focuser and rings.
The mirror is ready for the final grind of 5 micron and then onto polishing in the next few weeks...Almost right on f/4.7 and the glass tile tool worked a treat! although they are only 2mm thick now..
Shall put a post in the ATM section shortly!
cheers Gary

Originally Posted by iceman

Beautiful as usual, Gary. Lovely colours in the nebula and love the orange stars.

more please!

Thanks Mike!
Good to see the stars out again...now only that jet stream went away.
So have been doing some wideangle stuff to she settles down...
Stay tuned!...

Originally Posted by renormalised

If you look through the Keyhole, I wonder what you'll see

Unless you get poked in the eye by the "Ol' Boy"

Nice piccie, Gary

Thanks for that!!!
Knowing my luck I get a poke in the eye by a gigantic key!

Originally Posted by bluescope

Yep very similar composition to mine Gary .... good work.

Did you use a barlow or something because it seems like a small f.o.v. for a 6" newt with a 300D.

Thanks Steve!...
Almost the same as your shot hey.
The image has been cropped quiet a bit as I was just after this part of the neb so I centered this in the viewfinder.
I hope to get a nice 1.4x extender in the future!
cheers

Originally Posted by Ric

Great image Gary, a fantastic image showing some great detail and colour.

Cheers

Thanks Ric master! always very much appreciated!..

Originally Posted by jase

Lovely work Gary. Impressive details and colour balance looks spot on. A very minor comment. I found that by raising the black point on the red channel by ~11 points, it re-emphasised the blue hues in some of the stars and took away the subtle red tint. Such an adjustment is minor and a matter of personal preference. If possible, its good to get your black point across the RGB channels equal/in-alignment. It makes subsequent colour balance tweaks easier. A stunning image regardless. Well done.

Thanks Jase for the comments and spending the time to have a closer look... I have never tried just raising the black point just on one channel at a time..I shall give that a go later...thanks for that tip and advice
..
Always appreciated...
CS Gary

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Excellent job on this one Gary, a very busy scene with some lovely colour hues, nice work.

Do you have a picture of your 6" setup?

Mike

Thanks Mike, not quiet in the league as your image but its not too bad for a homemade 6" and a aging 300D..
Here is a pic of my setup just after I had finished my little ROR obs..
There would be twice the amount of wires now...
Thanks for looking...

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Excellent setup Gary! I am rather jealous! Know what you mean about wires...here's an old picture of my setup:

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...04409/original

.... I have it a bit tidier now but it aint too much better

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...03751/original



Can't wait to set it all up under the dark skies of Wiruna this weekend now pray for clear skies everyone

Mike