More M42 in Ha & HaRGB I'm afraid

[vic4loc (Victor)]

More experiment and learning session on how to use the QSI583. Almost a full moon, so only attempted the bright M42 with Ha, and processing HaRGB.

Attached are 2 images: Ha, and HaRGB, taken with the LX90 8" ACF, with CCDT67 focal reducer. The images shown is the actual full frame, I didnt crop, just resize in order to upload here. Guided with Orion SSAG.

Ha: 5x4mins subs, darks & bias, calibrated with MaxinLE, bin 1x1

For the RGB
R 3x120sec, G 3x90sec, B 3x60sec, bin 2x2

For some reasons my blue is very strong in the combined RGB image, maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Had to manually adjust the R levels and reduce B levels to bring the pink colour.

Victor.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Would like to help, but I do like the Ha image - very nice.

Did you combine all the channels? I guess yes. Could it be calibration / white balance?

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

The only thing that I can think of is that you have mixed the channels up because the colouring looks off. So make sure that you have actually set the right filters up eg. when you click blue filter its moves to the blue filter. The neb is predominantly pinky red but does have nice blue accents all the way though.

[vic4loc (Victor)]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still learning the LRGB processing techniques.

Originally Posted by rcheshire

Did you combine all the channels? I guess yes. Could it be calibration / white balance?

I have using only the tools in MaximLE. Have not played much with colour balance/adjustments. Basically these are the steps I did:

1. setup the calibration,
2. open the set of Red subs, then Calibrate All,
3. then Align and Combine them
4. perform Stretch
5. repeat process for Green & Blue
6. finally I do the Combine Colour, with all the default values

So far I noticed all my RGB image has a blue tinge to them. Is blue a lot more sensitive while imaging? I even compensate that by reducing it's sub exposures, but still seem to get a strong blue.

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

So make sure that you have actually set the right filters up eg. when you click blue filter its moves to the blue filter.

I'm quite sure I set all the filter and configured correctly to match in the software. I can check again tomorrow.

Thanks again,
Victor.

[vic4loc (Victor)]

Ok just in case I have mixed up the channels, what I tried is during the color combine stage, for the Red channel I used the blue file and for the Blue channel and used the red fiile, below is what I came up with... not sure if the colour is any better.

Victor.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

That looks very good in several respects - nice job on the core. Is there a need to combine channels after stretching.? A linear combine if possible might be preferable. When the combined image is stretched all channels are stretched equally. Which might be a better indicator of colour balance.