Corona Australis complex

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Larger version here

Captured a couple of weeks ago on a still and dewy night from Paul Haese's dark sky site on Lake Alexandrina. Dew on the objective caused the flaring around Epsilon CrA towards top left. In yet another moment of astronomical stupidity I forgot to plug the dew strap into the controller and didn't realise until several hours of subs had gone by - even managed to turn up the heat as the evening progressed, which had a psychological effect only.

Reflection nebulae NGC 6726, 6727, IC 4812
Variable Nebula NGC 6729
Dark Nebula Bernes 157
Globular cluster NGC 6723 just over the border in Sagittarius

Takahashi TSA-120 with reducer at f/5.6
Astro-Physics 900GTO mount
FLI Microline 8300 CCD camera at -30 degrees C
LRGB: 150,40,40,40 mins

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Hi Graeme,

Love the detail acheived in the large version of this image, especially in the reflection nebula's.
Interesting colours too!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Graeme. I really like the star colour and saturation. Very nice work.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

I don't mind that sort of flare around bright stars. Adds "atmosphere".

[Peter.M]

I too dont mind the flare, and the saturation. Looks great!

[Ross G]

A very good photo Graeme.

Great colour and detail.

Nice composition too.

Ross.

[gregbradley]

That turned out very well despite your dew problem.

Only comment is there seems to be an excess of green in the image that is throwing your colour balance off a bit.

Greg.

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Greg, I don't have a calibrated monitor so it's a bit of hit and miss, but to my eye it was looking too magenta so I've just reduced this a bit. In photoshop the histograms for RGB look reasonably matched and if I hover the mouse above a piece of blank sky, the info window actually indicates a lower level of green than B and R.

[RickC (Richard)]

I really like this Graeme, I think the star flare looks good and balances the image, great colour too.

cheers,
Richard