I decided to 'wimp out' and post this one here, rather than stepping into the 'big boys' room where the knowledgeable people like strongmanmike hang out.
I've held off imaging this one because I always thought it was too small / too dim for me to capture, but after seeing a couple of images recently from people in light-polluted areas capturing excellent results, I'm glad I took the plunge and tried.
I captured this data last Friday night (taking advantage of the first clear night in over a month!) from my backyard here in suburban Melbourne.
I won't go into all the hassles I had getting started - it took over an hour of fiddling around with software problems and camera rotation (including reassembling the optical train multiple times with different thickness shims before the camera was at the right angle).
All the struggle was worth it, as the end result is what I feel is my best image yet. So much so that I'm tempted to get it printed at A2 size and put it up on the wall.
The portrait image is the entire scene from the camera, showing a large amount of the nebula; whilst the landscape image is a crop of the central region to concentrate on the 'dragons'.
As always, comments, criticism and feedback more than welcome.
Cheers,
V
Image data:
Gain: 100
Offset: 10
Temperature: 0 degrees C
Exposure: 120 seconds
Frames: 120 Lights, 25 Darks, 50 each of Flats and DarkFlats (4 hours integration in total)
Filter: L-Enhance (Ha + Oiii dual-narrowband)
Processed with SiriL (stacking and pre-processing) then finished in Affinity Photo v2
Steve, that's a really nice image especially for a dark object. You should be very happy with the detail you have.
Yeah I never post in the big boys forum, did so once and was not made to feel welcome so I just post here and share my hobby with nice people
A beautiful image Steve, and you’ve captured the Dragons with oodles of detail - there’s so much lovely complexity along the rim and I quite like how the dust and gas clouds draw you into the centre of the image NGC6188 responds really well to NB filters for us suburban backyard shooters and I’ve shot it with the Antlia Ha-Oiii dual NB filter with excellent results, and have just finished collecting a bunch of SHORGB data. Interestingly, it also shows up quite well with RGB if you get enough data and has a dull reddish colour which I’m guessing is the Ha coming through. Great image. Alex
Really nice Steve. Great work on the dense star field. I reckon you could utilize a full dynamic range a little more by pulling back in the darker regions and thus making the darker regions even darker. Hope you don’t mind me attaching an example.
Overall, a beautiful image to be proud of. Keep those images coming!
That's a beauty Steve. Definitely print it, I think it's probably your best yet.
I'm with Stephane, a touch of dark[side]ness might give it even more depth.
Artistically the suffering was obviously worth it, very beautiful.
Thanks very much for all the feedback and comments - I appreciate them a lot.
Stephane, I fully agree - gently playing with the contrast is something that needs to be done before I get it printed. I did tweak it before posting the image, but it needs a fraction more.
Now I'm off to re-read the threads about getting images printed.
I got this one printed yesterday. I think a bit more brightness and a touch more saturation of the colours and it'll be even better. Now to get it framed and find some wall-space to hang it.
I found a script for SiriL that will convert an RGB image into the Hubble Yellow/Green/Blue palette and thought I'd give it a try with the Dragons.
The only processing I did was to boost the saturation and run Affinity's DeNoise filter over it. No star removal, no contrast tweaking. I really quite like it.
The stars might be a fraction too blue, but I'm not stressed about that.
Well I really like it Steve...I have probably spent 20 hours recently on this object via the 80mm and the 115mm and because of "issues" nothing as decent as yours....I only wish my results were half as good as yours...mine just are not sharp and I put it down to back focus on the 115 mm and the auto focus on the 80mm just outta wack...so I am going to try with the Askar as it seems to work OK.
Great effort and your dedication is paying high dividends.
Alex
Steve thats a great image very well done ,dont worry about what anyone says in the big boys room i have been there for yrs we are all here to help each other inc Michael blue stars look great buy the way
