Lagoon Nebula with Canon 450D 14-bit color

[PhotonCollector (Paul)]

Here's my 2nd attempt with the new Hutech 450D - this image done last night with my William Optics Megrez 110mm f/5.95 Refractor telescope on
Losmandy G-11 equatorial mount. Guiding Autoguided with SBIG 402 on Orion ST-80 f/5 guidescope with CCDOps.

Total Exposure time 75-minutes (15 x 5-minute exposures @ ISO 400).

Astronomik 2" CLS filter,
Baader 2" I/R Cut Filter,
Baader MP Coma Corrector.
Processing Darks, bias and flat-fielded with DeepSkyStacker, post processing in Photoshop.

Higher resolution image http://www.skylab.com.au/pmsa/LagoonNebula_080530.html

The raw images tend to consume around 15-MBytes each, the final TIFF version of the image is just over 100-Megabytes (32-bit). I need a new computer

regards to all

[AlexN]

looks nice.. there surely is a lot of detail in the outer edges of the nebulousity..

The huge files can be a pain to handle in photoshop... very ram intensive!!

Well shot, and processed.

[tornado33]

Yes indeed, the modded 450D is showing its stuff. That little reflection nebula upper left really stands out, Ive not seen it show up so well in lagoon shots before.
Scott

[h0ughy (David)]

wow fantastic results Mr Mayo, and posting ths on a cloudy night, shame on you!!!

You realise of course you will make Scott toss his Hutech 350D don't you

[bluescope]

Nice wide field image showing the full extension of the nebulosity !

Not too sure about the green hues though ...... ?

[Alchemy (Clive)]

certainly got the details in the outer neb extensions.

[RB (Andrew)]

It has nice detail around the core Paul, but the histogram is badly clipped in the red channel and there does seem to be a green hue.
Maybe the filters have had an adverse effect.

[rollmebackagain]

green hue or not I think it looks pretty cool!

[Robert_T]

Looks great!. Those dark spots that look like hole shot through the nebula -are these likely to be areas of active star formation...?

[jase (Jason)]

Ditto on what RB states. Careful processing would significantly improve the presentation of this image.

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

definitely a very nice image paul with alot of inner details around the core. agree on andrews comment with clipping though. This image has alot of potential .

[PhotonCollector (Paul)]

Yes the green is rather interesting isn't it :-) Certainly a bonus from the camera - which I thought it might do because of the cameras ability to record many more levels of brightness - 16,384 levels v's 4096 levels in prior Canon sensors - that's 4x more. Also I had the new camera modified with a clear wide-band sensor replacement.

These new versions of the image are processed in another software package that I just downloaded - IRIS v5.5 - which supports the Canon 450D 14-bit raw images - and as I suspected the green is still prevalent in the image. The 1st image is a sedate/natural version of the image - pretty much a brightened look at the raw image. The 2nd image is the same image with the usual barrage of image processing.

The image in the original post was processed with ImagesPlus which slightly corrupts the 450d RAW images and so I had to crop off the corruptions - along top and especially bottom edge - which resulted in loosing the cluster you see in this new image processed with IRIS which properly supports the Canon 450d raws.

I really didn't expect the image to be judged by histogram analysis - this was only the second image I've had to process with the new camera (which could not be processed normally) and then I masked the centre of the image in Photoshop (which can really mess up colours) so I wasn't too worried about histograms in my excitement of producing a "first-light" image - the image looked about right to show people on IIS.

Admittedly the image is likely not to processed technically correct and it might look a little too green and un-balanced - okay so I was DUI on the joystick! - the histogram maybe cut - ImagesPlus does that for you if you let it and so do some other filters and gradient things etc.

RB: do the images need to be technically correct before I post them ?

As tornado33 suggested - it will be very interesting to see how well the camera records green colours in the Helix Nebula.

So far it is proving to be extremely low noise and providing some very smooth 15-Megabyte images. There is also no AMP GLOW any more cause the 450d turns the amplifier off during long exposures. Incidentially Gary Honis (find him on the web) is using ISO-1600 with a Canon450D and getting some amazing galaxy images with just 2-minute sub-frames).

regards to all and thanks for looking.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by PhotonCollector

RB: do the images need to be technically correct before I post them ?

No, it's ok Paul.

Sorry, post what you like, I'll enjoy it.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

[quote=PhotonCollector;332163]

RB: do the images need to be technically correct before I post them ?

quote]

Absolutely! Oh I never!

.....and because you posted a Lagoon Nebula image with a green centre you will be shot at dawn!...err?...can you bring the gun? we're fresh out'a guns at the moment...or perhaps you would settle for being squashed with a big heavy CCD camera and filterwheel?

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Amazing images Paul. Tech. correct or not - I like them.

[alan meehan (Alan)]

very smooth lots of detail good to see you found a hole in this lousy weather

[Spiney (Steve)]

Bloody fabulous. Great detail.