Latest effort from the weekend. Friday night was nothing but a big tease: I'd get ready but then clouds would come in, i'd take a break, they'd clear up and so on throughout the night...in the end I was ready to start imaging the Tarantula but a bank of clouds came in so I aborted the whole thing, packed up etc...by the time I got out of the observatory, it was pristine !
I had better luck last night, it was a nice clear night all night long.
I got all excited and I so rarely get to image now that I only shot a few lights of the Tarantula, jumping from target to target to try and get something, anything (and I thought I knew better)
hope you like it.
frank
The teasing cloud scenario gotta love it but man you have an observatory, it's infinitely more frustrating with no observatory and your rig looks like this:
Put it this way, if it's clear for the hour or so it takes me to setup and then clouds over.. I am fuming MAD! the cloud over - clear up - cloud over is probably even more demorolising though?
Your Tarantula is very pleasing and shows great vibrance, nice job
I assume there are a few more images to come from your image hopping then? hope so
The teasing cloud scenario gotta love it but man you have an observatory, it's infinitely more frustrating with no observatory and your rig looks like this:
Put it this way, if it's clear for the hour or so it takes me to setup and then clouds over.. I am fuming MAD! the cloud over - clear up - cloud over is probably even more demorolising though?
Your Tarantula is very pleasing and shows great vibrance, nice job
I assume there are a few more images to come from your image hopping then? hope so
Mike
Thanks Mike,
yes there are more coming I hope though none with enough light frames I expect. You've got a great set up and I'll bet you miss having an observatory, that is on well earned bear after setting up!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hagar
Very Nice Frank and thanks it's not a 253 repro.
Thanks Doug,
I hope I dont end up reprocessing this one too often either! I find that no matter how much I remind myself to take a few days to process I'm sooo keen to process and post I usually end up doing it right away only to realise I should wait until I've caught up on sleep!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexN
Awesome shot! Your setup must be humming along!! The tracking looks perfect, and that is some serious focal length!!
Inspirational, Especially for someone like me who has a miniature version of your setup
Thanks Alex,
The Tarantula was shot at F/7 (the C14 is F/11 with a 6.3 focal reducer...I'm still not 100% sure what focal ratio that makes it).
I've had a go at some F/11 shots Saturday/Sunday but I tell you what, the difference in focal length between the C14 at nearly 4 meters and the ZS 80 at 480 mm is proving challenging. Your setup isn't that miniature with a C11, that's nice gear!.
Thanks Mike,
I struggled with the level of saturation, with Peter's words in mind re saturation work, I tried to tweak it just to the limit where the gas clouds looked a nice vibrant pink but I did notice the orangy stars. That one was a tough call for me, it might be that they looked just ok on my monitor but better LCDs reveal them as just a tad too pushed?
Hard one that, I could look at reprocessing a bit... (I just heard Doug fall off his chair)
I'm not a PC person so don't take this personally....
Your data capture is great, infact I am amazed how good it is given the significant mass of your scope and not so big mount. Kudos to the G-11 for sure
Processing... sucks a little. I have no hard and fast rules, other than a warm human eye can sense a vast dynamic range and this is what I try to replicate in images. NGC2070 is a bit like M42 ie. vast dynamic range and needs much gamma stretching to show all the information in the digital data.
Stick with it...you are have the potential to be one of the best astro-imagers in Oz.
Lovely image Frank. I love the Focal Length the C14 gives you even with a focal reducer.
Nice and sharp and guiding looks spot on.
Very well done.
Thanks Matty
Quote:
Originally Posted by Octane
Frank,
The Tarantula looks well-defined to me. Top stuff.
I actually don't mind the varying star colours. Gives the image a bit of spice.
Regards,
Humayun
Thanks Humayun
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lester
I like your image Frank, very pleasing to my eyes.
Cheers Lester, much appreciated
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
Frank....
I'm not a PC person so don't take this personally....
Your data capture is great, infact I am amazed how good it is given the significant mass of your scope and not so big mount. Kudos to the G-11 for sure
Processing... sucks a little. I have no hard and fast rules, other than a warm human eye can sense a vast dynamic range and this is what I try to replicate in images. NGC2070 is a bit like M42 ie. vast dynamic range and needs much gamma stretching to show all the information in the digital data.
Peter,
Many thanks. Yes the G11 is a beauty. I've been trying to stretch the images by setting black points in darkest areas of sky and white points on white stars and ensuring all 3 levels are set appropriately (usually somewhere between 8 and 12 for black and 255 for white). Is that what you mean by vast dynamic range? Alternatively I suspect I can image a bit longer and capture a bit more of the faint luminosity which I suspect might be missing from this image thus accounting for lack of dynamic range? Am I on the right track?
I suspect I've stretched the data I have as much as it can be, it might now be a matter of capturing longer exposures, I think, is that right?
frank
)
but man you have an observatory, it's infinitely more frustrating with no observatory and your rig looks like this:
the cloud over - clear up - cloud over is probably even more demorolising though? 
).
