South Pacific Lagoon - QHY9/8" Newt

[RobF (Rob)]

The South Pacific Star Party has been my first opportunity to collect some serious dark sky RGB data with the QHY9. I decided to spend half my time one night on the Lagoon as my main object, and if other nights out of the 3 I was there were good than that would be a bonus (all 3 were fantastic as it turned out , though I didn't want to spend too long on one object as I've still got my LRGB training wheels on really).

This data is a merge of 3hrs of LRGB from Wiruna (10mins subs 1x1 all) + another 3x3x5mins LRGB through an IDAS pollution filter from Bris + 2 x 5min Ha from Brisbane. Processing DSS/PixInsight/PS.

I've tried a few new techniques on this data as it seemed good enough to hold up to some torturing. Hope I haven't got carried away...

M8 Full frame HaLRGB 10:105:45:45:45
M8 Cropped

QHY9/QHY Filter Wheel/QHY Filters
8" Newt on Heq5Pro
Guiding 9x50 SW Finderscope + Orion SSAG

Thanks for looking!

[gregbradley]

Superb resolution.

Greg.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

wow, you certainly bought out a lot of neb detail out there, top work.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

You must be happy with those Rob. Looks like you nailed the tracking.

[batema (Mark)]

Congratulations on a wonderful image Rob. I long for a star party and dark skies.

Mark

[multiweb (Marc)]

Superb work Rob! Great details in the core and bok globules. Terrific shot.

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

Very nice richness to this image. Processed well. The detail really pops out!!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It's a beautiful capture Rob. Just lovely.

[h0ughy (David)]

Colours are a different issue – but you sure have a lot of details there. So how did you do the processing in Pixinsight?

[Phil Hart]

you'd be rightly pleased with that Rob. great idea to concentrate a good chunk of time on one object. i love the colours in the middle but the outer parts are a little over saturated for my taste.. but that's subjective. i've had the same challenge in my images of this region.

did you end up getting a shot of the whirlpool in the end?

[astroron (Ron)]

Even I think it is lovely Rob

[TrevorW]

Top effort

in fact while searching for tutorials I came across this image by Tony Hallas a reknowned AP captured using a 14 RCOS and SBIG camera and thought deja vue just need too rotate and flip yours then cut back on the saturation

[Paul Haese]

Nicely detailed image. Maybe just a little over saturated but very nice all the same.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Excellent shot

[DavidTrap (David)]

Very impressed. The detail in the core is stunning.

DT

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Top work Rob

[DavidU (Dave)]

Very nice image Rob, I love the detail.

[RobF (Rob)]

Thanks everyone for your kind words and encouragement. I was pretty excited how this one was coming out in the end and wanted to share. There's always the worry when you've spent a few hours on something and its late that you'll find fault in the morning - couldn't help putting it up though as it stood, and I was particularly pleased at some of the detail I was able to pull out of the central "face" of the Lagoon.

David - as far as PixInsight processing went:
- RGB combine processed first - DBE, Colour Cal, Histogram stretches, Curves for bit of contract and Saturation boost and relative colour tweaks. Didn't seem to need noise reduction
(would have like to do some wavelet transforms for the bright central areas, but I still can't bend them enough to my will!)
- L stack: Deconv with the PSF skewed and rotated a bit to correct for some tracking smearing, Histogram stretch
- Ha images stacked, Histogram stretch, and slight denoise (ACDNR)
- StarAlignment, Crop
- Over to PS to layer RGB, L and Ha
- Then some stretches, Shadows/Highlights, High Pass filter masking and saturation boosting ala Ken Crawford's excellent suggestions:
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Presentations.html
I was particularly excited by Ken's use of Shadow/Highlights in PS to control blown out highlight areas - I've only ever used it to boost faint areas in the past. Ideally would have liked to do more of the final processing in PI but I'm still climbing the steep learning curve!

Phil - nowhere near the time you spent on that beautiful Rho Oph mosaic. I'm sorry now I didn't spend more time chatting and learning, but 3 days/nights goes so fast, and getting a look at your gear in action was great. Point taken re saturation - in hindsight I've pushed too hard - even the thumbnails look a bit overdone really

Trevor - interesting comparison with the RCOS. I was worried about the quality of the flats on this one and thought the data was a lot poorer until I got well into it. My image doesn't have that same RCOS razor blade sharpness, but I'm very happy how the little Newt + MPCC holds up in general!

Paul - many thanks - agreed on Saturation - just because PI has a nice saturation curve function, I shouldn't abuse it....


Many thanks again everyone who has looked/replied - really appreciate your comments,
Rob

[Octane (Humayun)]

Rob,

I still remember the day you posted your beautiful M31 and look at what you're posting today with a proper imaging system.

Mate, that is an absolute work of art -- I absolutely adore the saturated colours. The detail is abundant, and, your framing is spot on.

Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds. Kudos to you for spending the bulk of your time on the one object -- it shows in the final rendering.

H

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Octane

Rob,

I still remember the day you posted your beautiful M31 and look at what you're posting today with a proper imaging system.

Mate, that is an absolute work of art -- I absolutely adore the saturated colours. The detail is abundant, and, your framing is spot on.

Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds. Kudos to you for spending the bulk of your time on the one object -- it shows in the final rendering.

H

Thanks so much Humayun. Had lots of fun bringing this one to life.
Gives me the confidence to keep cranking up the total exposure times too now that I know I'm hopefully not wasting my time doing so.