M42 & NGC1977 - a Starless Ha companionship

[Emanuele]

On April 1st I tried Ha imaging for the first time. The moon was up and there was a 10-12mph wind so it was a perfect night to try new things out!
Had a very hard time understanding if I was in focus or not. Maxim DL has a very poor rendition of the actual data coming in.

Since I have a One Shot Color camera I know that Ha imaging is really not going to great but nevertheless it will keep my busy for those moonlit nights.

This is A Starless, Ha, Orion and Running Man companionship.

Tak EM400
Pentax 125SDP + RC0.77x67P Reducer @ F4.9
SXVF-M25C
Exp: 6 x 15 min (1.5hr total) - no darks, no bias, no flats.
Acq: Maxim DL 5

I need more time on this one. An hour and half in not enough at all.
Quick run in Nebulosity and discarded color data into Luminance only. Not sure if this processing method is the best.
I also want to try CCDSharp Lucy Richardson deconvolution on this one. Will do that later on though.
- The image is grainy a bit. I think an OSC camera is really not an option for serious Ha imaging.

Bigger version(1300px):
http://www.backyardskies.com/BackyardSkies/OrionHa.html

Smaller Preview:

[bloodhound31]

I really like that! It's nice to see somehting different. It's so subtle and soft, yet filled with such detail.

A gloud of gas would be soft too, which gives it a very real feel. Good work!

Baz.

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

I also like it! So If I read this right, you stuck the Ha filter over the entire LRGB spectrum of your OSC - then "dumped" the RGB but retinaed the Luminace? Or did you convert the RGB to Monochrome after imaging (which included the Luminance), then did post processing?

[Hagar (Doug)]

Hi Emanuele, The image shows a great amout of detail but to me does look somewhat soft. I attempted the same with a QHY8 and used the luminance channel and discarded the RGB. It looks a little strange without stars but then again I am used to seeing stars.
Nice image but looks a little soft and smooth.

[multiweb (Marc)]

It's not bad at all for 1.5h. Are you going to do SII and OIII on it as well?
I have a QHY8 which is an OSC as well. Red and Blue channels have significant loss of resolution because of the bayer matrix but you still can get some decent shots. It's never going to beat a mono for sure but you can get the job done.

[Emanuele]

Baz, DrPaul, Doug and Marc, thank you for your feedback, opinions and compliments!

Dr Paul: yes, I used the entire matrix of the M25C. I tried using the Red channel only but it came out with spots all over the image. So I reprocessed it with the entire matrix.

Hagar: I left it soft because I have only 6 x15 subs, which are not sufficient at all. I have to go 20 to 30 minutes and way more than 6 subs! If I try to do an unsharp mask then I'm going to have a lot of noise. Furthermore, the M25C is an OSC camera and it is really NOT sensitve at all as you know

[bluescope]

Hi Emanuele

Nice result with lots of subtle detail and a definite 3D look to it.

According to SBIG if you want to do Ha imaging with a colour CCD you can use binning 2x2 to image as a mono camera ... I'm not sure if this is the same with Starlight cameras.

[atalas]

Showing nice detail E !

[jase (Jason)]

Interesting rendition Emanuele. If you were running a 3nm Ha filter with a red continuum filter, I'd say its plausible...but there's only so far you can take the dust&scratch or clone tools in PS. Narrow fields are the best for starless scenes. Wide fields just look plain wrong IMO.

Sounds like you're doing something wrong in MaximDL if you're not hitting focus. I'm assuming you're doing the task manually...Once you've cropped a star that you intend focusing on, within the camera control dialogue box, click on the inspect tab. Monitor the FWHM or HFD values as you work the focuser in and out. You should be able to reach focus without too much pain. Just don't select a bright saturated star as the readings are likely to be erroneous.

[Jay-qu]

Nice - it looks naked