Rosette through the ED80

[rat156]

Hi All,

The ED80 was sitting in the corner of the observatory gathering dust.

A pity as it's a fine imaging scope, so I dragged it out, cleaned it up and tried to balance it on the G11 (unsuccessfully with the SBIG gear on the back).

The Rosette nebula is really big, so I wanted to use this scope to take a picture, as it turn out even the ED80 has too much focal length for this one. I might have to try my hand at a mosaic!

The AOL did all the guiding at this focal length at about 5Hz as I found a bright guide star

Anyway, here 'tis.

There's some obvious edge of field artifacts from the ED80, but not bad really.

Larger version available with image details here

Cheers
Stuart

[TrevorW]

I know I'm imaging this tonight with the RC to see what I get

I had a quick play with it in CS3 hope u don't mind Stuart

[rat156]

Through the RC, you won't get much.

I was thinking of doing a closeup on some of the more interesting regions though...

What did the reprocess do other than bring out the noise I was trying to hold back? Yes, it needs more data, but everything needs more data, I don't have the patience to do 19 hour imaging runs (Melbourne's weather rarely co-operates that long either), I admire those that do, but not for me.

The aim of the processing was to try to get the deep red of the Ha, whilst trying to stop the blue coming out too much in the middle of the rose, whilst trying to maintain the detail from the Ha luminance.

To each their own, but I prefer mine. Of course all this could be because I use a Mac to process the images, which sometimes makes the images darker on PC monitors, a difference in gamma levels for the two systems. My monitor is calibrated (as is the one at work, PC), sometimes I get to work to have a look at the images, then have to come home and brighten them all. Maybe I should produce two images, one for PC, one for Mac?

Cheers
Stuart

[TrevorW]

Sorry Stuart looks very dark on my monitor

Cheers

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

Nice image stuart! The detail is really good. The colours are, as you say, well balanced too. I wil be having a go at this through an ED80 with a .8 reducer to try and get more of it in the FOV. Nice work..

[rat156]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Sorry Stuart looks very dark on my monitor

Cheers

Looks dark on the uncalibrated work monitor as well...

Yours looks better at work.

Cheers
Stuart

[Hagar (Doug)]

Very nice detail Stuart, it certainly fills the frame. Its big but surprisingly faint.

Nice job.

[telecasterguru (Frank)]

Stuart,

I think the Rosette looks really good and I will get the ED 80 out this weekend and give it a go.

Frank