Witch's Head

[oska (John)]

It would seem that Alex^2 have left it to me to grind the spam on my lonesome. Pst, V, help man!
This time I at least tried to get an image, rather than the usual faffing about I couldn't find a framing that didn't get hassled by the two bright stars nearby, you know - the bright ones.
I also did some experimenting with a 3d printed baffled glare shield which seemed to drop the median by about 10%, interesting.

There was also a stuff-up in the cal leaving a donut - oopsie. I tried to find where it came from but can't, so we'll pretend it's not there for now.

I'd really appreciate some tips on how to process out the glare from out of frame bright stars? I ended up needing to use GraXpert to minimise it as I wasn't getting anywhere with DBE.

~19hrs of 300s 100g 50o -10C

EON85 f/5 (0.8x)
ASI2600MC EQ6R
NINA + GraXpert + PI

As always tips, tricks and criticism most welcome

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Sorry mate, but solid clouds down here so no imaging in ages, and for the foreseeable future.

Your images look great, and I'm unable to offer any advice on how to improve them.

Sadly,
V

[oska (John)]

Cheers V, I feel for ya man. I complain (bitterly, just ask the dog) about a few days to a WHOLE week of clouds, mainly in jest. My mate on the Central Coast NSW can't recall a fully clear night in almost a year. Sheesh.

[Dave882 (David)]

That’s a fantastic result!! Wow such a great range of colour in the witch head and excellent definition. I like the star version best.
I had a crack at this a few months back and had similar dramas with reflections…I wish I had a solution but honestly don’t know how anyone does it clean except for fixing in post-processing.

[oska (John)]

Cheers Dave, I only included the over stretched starless to illustrate the horror

[Bodon (Steve)]

John
Nice pic! Cloudy most of the time here grr. OSC, do you split channels and work on them separately, filters attached? Also what is the 50o? Ta

[oska (John)]

Cheers Steve.
I don't split the channels even if I'm doing faux SHO, just colour masks (Bill Blanshan) and curves. This one I used a red mask to pump up the saturation of the red gas and a blue mask (with the 2 star leaks clone stamped out) to pump up the saturation and a dash of blue to the main cloud.
50o is offset=50, the default for the driver. I'm going to experiment with lower values, I've only had it a short time.

[Bodon (Steve)]

Thanks for the heads up John.
Ah offset. I use the ASIAIR+ so offset is fixed. Im looking at this camera and diving straight to mono. I have only taken a few pics so it will be an eye opener.

[oska (John)]

No worries Steve. Good luck, I'm developing a need for the mono too

[Nikolas (Nik)]

That image with the stars is spectacular i wish I could replicate something like that

[raymo]

I love the exquisite little galaxies, they are so sharp.
raymo

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by oska

Cheers Dave, I only included the over stretched starless to illustrate the horror

You may have illustrated the unwanted reflections but you also revealed the many galaxies that are scattered throughout in great detail. A fine capture of this elusive reflection nebula John. Well done!

[oska (John)]

Cheers gentlemen, much appreciated. Yeah those galaxies were a very pleasant surprise, thanks again.

[xelasnave]

You are producing amazing images ... well done.

Alex

[oska (John)]

Cheers Alex, the generous encouragement from you good-hearted souls does wonders.

[AdamJL]

really good. I didn't even know there were such big background galaxies in that part of the sky.

[oska (John)]

Thanks Adam

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Sheesh, I go away for a couple weeks (2 months!) and you've become even better at astro! Love the image with the stars, and nice to see that you are getting some cloud fee nights. Alex

[oska (John)]

Cheers Alex, as I was saying the other day (month) "it's more like lucky imaging, in that I'm lucky to get an image". There's "a couple" that didn't make it past the capture or processing stage. Lately there's been as little as 45 mins per night, I think for this one there was only one full night. Now you're back, I mean there's only really one thing for it, lift ya game old man.