Hi Folks,
Here is my version of M27
Seeing in the early parts of the evening was poor but soon picked up.
Taken last night, 32 images stacked in DSS for a total of 37min and 51 sec.
processed in CS3 and cropped. All various ISO's and exposures, included is 20 x 30sec at 1600ISO, the rest 2 and 3 mins at 800ISO.
Hi All,
Well that's a turn out for the books...this Jet and I've actually managed to image it faintly without even knowing it, it certainly makes me want to gather more data.
Thanks Leon, H0ughty, Ric and Phil - it appears gathering lots of images and stacking does pay, Alchemy - I was jutting back and forward to the image Mike was talking about straining my eyes looking for it and your right it is there.
Steve (Madtuna) Mate I was out there last night and yes the rains came, (are the plans in for your observatory?).
I've inverted this image and cropped for the fun of it to see if brings out this jet...I don't know.
The cropped version actually looks like the resolution would be pretty good! you should post it cropped non-inverted I'll bet it'll look great, you can see int he inverted on the stars look fine
lets have a look at it!
cheers
frank
Thanks Paul,
looks pretty good, obviously it's affected by the magnification from the original scale but not bad at all
Might be worth considering removing a bit of the background gradient which makes the nebula really stand out though I realize its often a matter of personal taste.
Good website by the way!
cheers
frank
Hi Frank,
I will take more images and restack at the first instance, it pouring down here at the moment so its a no go...and it may rain for the rest of the week.
How do you remove the background gradient? Just curious.
Paul
I think there are a few different ways to remove the gradient or sky glow type of background. I'm no expert but there are a few ways to do it. Others should jump in with a better tutorial here.
couple of easy ways to start would be to show up the histogram in something like Photoshop and adjust the blackpoint (slide the left point until it gets closer to the base of the curve. You'll see this will darken the image a fair amount.
Another way is to copy the image a couple of times, blur one copy using gaussian blur enough to just make out the main nebula, adjust brightness and contract to pretty much just see the area of the nebula, the other copy is blurred using the gaussian blur pretty much to the max. Invert this last one (black becomes white basically)
Select the max blur and copy and paste onto the original.
Go into layers window click on the second icon at the bottom to open up a "mask" window, Alt click on that blank window and paste into the blown up blank window the first blur that just shows the nebula area (that's your mask-only areas not in the nebula area will be affected by the layer) .
Then using the varous blending modes pick one that pretty much just removes the gradient ("soft light" is usually good).
adjust levels to taste
voila.
There are better ways to do it but these are quick ways to make a difference.
other imagers more experienced with processing can describe better ways I have no doubt
hope this helps
