One of the rare chances earlier in the month here in Brisbane. Though I would try a quick Lagoon with the new ST10 in narrowband. Seeing was not up to it though but in Ha it is not as noticable. ST10 seems to show the fainter areas better with SII than the 314 sensor could.
Sublime work John. I really like the color blend and the way you've handled the whole dynamic range of the target right down to the hour glass. Sub zero cool.
Up close and personal, John! Been a while since I've experienced such a stunning view. So long in fact, that my recollection of the last was Fred's starless lagoon done a couple of years ago. Your image displays a great depth of field where you've handled the mid-tones and highlights very well to emphasise this. I've not been a huge supporter of narrowband renditions of M8. They never appeared as aesthetic compare true colour RGB, but your image has changed my view on this. Without the star rich background that surrounds M8 in the frame, the palette works exceptionally well... and talk about return on investment too, not huge exposure time for such a striking result. Gotta be happy with the ST10, that's for sure. Well done and thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comments, colour is always a struggle to get right, most NB results look not quite right with too much green and muddy hues all over, but still striking.
I try to emphasis the orange and cyans - but nebula are all different some have lots of green and yellows with little SII and the SII can be noisy. I positioned the frame so as to get more SII mountains to balance the OIII lagoon. This bright nebula won't be noisy at least.
Its nice to get back to processing and bloom spikes are absent in NB but I appreciate the extra sensitivity/dynamic range of this CCD. I will have to try RGB next.