ngc 6188 Fighting Dragons

[xelasnave]

EDIT...I CAN NOT UPLOAD PHOTO ..I will try later...

could not find this object the first time I tried so I tried to get my goto working which I have not used other than ten years ago on another mount..I like finding things the old way..but I could not so I tried goto without success so then I just used the dial on Dec. I was sure I was on it but nothing showed on screen with short exposure but happily I selected Ha dialled way up for 30 seconds and there it was not perfectly in the center but I was happy that I still had it..whatever it is But I will have to sort goto..the observatory is too small to use the finder scope all the time...I am happy I can just point the scope and find what I am after..years of pub pool

Anyways I only had a couple of hours so I took R,B, G and Ha R G B at 250 gain and HA at 400 gain...wild or what.

One minute subs, about an hour for Ha and about 20 minutes each for R G B but I took darks … so stacked Deep Sky Stacker, Processed in Star Tools, Photo Shop and Gimp. HEQ5 unguided mount with perfect PA at least the little crosses in Polemaster were exact 80 mm spirit, ZWO 1600 mono cooling at -15 degrees C Good Seeing but very cold moisture was not too bad.
Next step would seem longer exposures at reasonable gain and some flats and hopefully the washed out look will improve..but I am very happy I am already way past where I expected to be when I started...
The image was heavily cropped ..at first cause I was worried about oval stars but later I just though this crop looked about right..for me at least.

alex

[RyanJones]

An interesting take on this one Alex as expected. I must say I really like the way you’ve framed it. I’d like to see the full sized version of it. Nice work, well done.

[xelasnave]

Thanks Ryan ..the larger version is better..I just had to get it away as they say ..been at it too long..I had 15 finals, each a little different and so I combined them all in register.. that was an interesting image.
I am too tired to go out tonight or do anything really.
Alex

[xelasnave]

I took this image into my phone and turned down brightness, contrast and saturation and to my eye it's better this way...I was too tired to go out last night and get more data maybe tonight...I have been outta the game too long as although very tired I am not sleeping well during the day...maybe I need to find work in town.
Alex

[xelasnave]

wider for Ryan

[RyanJones]

Thanks Alex

I actually liked the crop version, what I meant was the full resolution version. It looks good until you zoom in then the file compression damages it. I was thinking that the uncompressed version would be nice to see, to zoom in and scoot around.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by RyanJones

Thanks Alex

I actually liked the crop version, what I meant was the full resolution version. It looks good until you zoom in then the file compression damages it. I was thinking that the uncompressed version would be nice to see, to zoom in and scoot around.

What do you mean Ryan unbinned I presume?

I have been binning 25%

At one point when processing and zoomed in I noticed small stars were square and I started to wonder if my set up undersampled but I thought no more about it.

Looks like I am going to have to learn about what I am doing as really I am not at all happy with these images, I am happy to a degree but they lack something that I know I am missing..I hope longer exposure time and reasonable gain will be the key to improvement.
I just sent seem to get past the cartoon effect...

Alex

[xelasnave]

Er brain fade...I totally forgot about reducing the image for here but that may be a good thing as I have decided to do a reprocess of all the data with no binning or say 75% ..I fell asleep today listening to history on YouTube and was out for four hours maybe more... so maybe more data tonight as it's clear so see if this narrow band works in the Moonlight for me, damn cold however, gather more data less binning, whatever and see if I can fix this mess.
Alex

[gb44 (Glenn)]

hi Alex
Watching or listening to golf reruns on GolfTV is another good way to encourage a bit of sleep.

Try saving the images as jpegs and resize to 1200 pixels across the horizontal and keep the file size high, in Photoshop. Then the images should be nicer to view.

Crikey, looking at what you have produced makes me wonder why I'm still using a DSLR.
Cheers
GlennB

[Sunfish (Ray)]

Very wild as usual Alex and a lot of detail to look at. Amazing amount of gain for those short exposures. I did like your Ic 2944. Was that also high gain?

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Sunfish

Very wild as usual Alex and a lot of detail to look at. Amazing amount of gain for those short exposures. I did like your Ic 2944. Was that also high gain?

I am running 250 gain on RBG and L ..Ha 450 or more if it will take it....variety of reasons..I want to get all my data in a short time which still takes five hours, I am not using guiding at the moment so short exposures although the mount and pa are decent and I can get longer unguided..I must want mount etc running as good as possible before I add guiding. ...and just trying to push the limits before I get real serious.

Jinxed myself earlier...went I went out the cloud had rolled in so I am reprocessing the data I have going for 71% binning and being very careful with the processing whereas I really have been rushing..I just will see if I can get a better result by being more careful...and listening to bucket head to find his good stuff.
Alex

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by gb44

hi Alex
Watching or listening to golf reruns on GolfTV is another good way to encourage a bit of sleep.

Try saving the images as jpegs and resize to 1200 pixels across the horizontal and keep the file size high, in Photoshop. Then the images should be nicer to view.

Crikey, looking at what you have produced makes me wonder why I'm still using a DSLR.
Cheers
GlennB

Thanks for your advice.
The difference between narrow band and DSLR is enormous...ha is simply amazing. The ha frame is usually fantastic and it's a shame to mix it with the others..I love it.
The down side is it takes ages to capture and an eternity to process...still I won't go back to DSLR except for wide fields and even then I wish it was modded.
Alex