I haven't had much processing time lately, but here's my first attempt at M78 from the scope I share at SRO in California (where the weather is currently awful too!)
Data captured at SRO, Dec 2014/Jan 2015
Objects in image:
M78, NGC 2064, NGC 2067, NGC 2068, NGC 2071, about 45 T Tauri variable stars and 17 HH objects
Scope: FSQ-106ED
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: QSI683
Filters: Astrodon Gen II LRGB
Guiding: QSI OAG + Lodestar
Image scale: 2.094 arcsec/pixel (drizzle x 2)
Exposures: 39x900s L, 16x900s R, 13x900s G, 16x900s B (21 hours)
Processing: PixInsight 1.8
Wow, that's a rich image and so smooth, very nice. My eye is drawn though from M78 to the loop and back constantly, like they're fighting each other for attention. Maybe tone down/darken down the loop a little to bring the eye back to that gorgeous M78? Just a thought.
Wow, that's a rich image and so smooth, very nice. My eye is drawn though from M78 to the loop and back constantly, like they're fighting each other for attention. Maybe tone down/darken down the loop a little to bring the eye back to that gorgeous M78? Just a thought.
Cracking work Rick
Thanks, Andy. I couldn't decide whether that tension was a good or bad thing. Perhaps I'll try cropping out the loop and see whether I like it
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bassnut
geez, exquisite Rick, rich colour and love the contrast between the 2 objects, a pleasure to view.
Thanks very much, Fred!
Quote:
Originally Posted by LewisM
My favourite DSO, captured and processed beautifully. Bravo!
Lots of red/Ha there....it's not a loop anymore, more like Barnards swathe
M78 looks good too
Seems many people are doing very similar FOV's on this area lately and this is one of the good'uns
Lovely work
Mike
Thanks, Mike! Didn't want to do a "me too" but we started collecting the data a while ago. Maybe I should have left the processing another few months and been early for the 2016 season
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozstronomer
Beautiful image Rick, bold and striking, love the framing and to me processing looks spot on
Geoff
Thanks, Geoff!
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
Great image Rick,
I probably wouldn't have made the red so saturated -
maybe cut it back by 10% but that's your call.
cheers
Allan
Ta, Allan. My big beef with Astrobin is that they don't preserve ICC colour profiles. On my wide gamut monitor the Astrobin image looks very magenta and oversaturated. On my crappy laptop (probably close to sRGB gamut) it looks OK. The uploaded image had a sRGB profile but it's MIA now. Could that be the problem? Of course, the original image looks fine on either in any app that does colour management.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJT
Gorgeous image Rick. Like the framing a lot and the processing for such a bugger looks fine to me!
Thanks, David.
Quote:
Originally Posted by atalas
Great detail lovely colours Rick...distribution of brightness levels seems strange to me.
Thanks, Louie. Anything specific that struck you as strange? I don't think I did anything too egregious in the processing but it wouldn't be the first time I messed up and didn't notice till it was pointed out
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
Looks good Rick. Great colours too.
Thanks, Paul.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Placidus
Exquisitely beautiful, Rick. And to me, it gives a real and pleasing feeling of the true and proper structure of Barnard's Ring. A delightful image.
Ta, Allan. My big beef with Astrobin is that they don't preserve ICC colour profiles. On my wide gamut monitor the Astrobin image looks very magenta and oversaturated. On my crappy laptop (probably close to sRGB gamut) it looks OK. The uploaded image had a sRGB profile but it's MIA now. Could that be the problem? Of course, the original image looks fine on either in any app that does colour management.
Not saying there is or you did anything wrong mate(I am a big fan of your work)I mean to say, the brighness in part of the Barnards Loop is very strong but the Ha signal looks week.
Yet It dips down in brighness heading towards the stronger signal towards the centre?
So,I did wonder If this was a result of non linear manipulation?or,this distribution of brightness was there from initial linear stretch?I havent had much time on this object Rick so I find the dynamic range here interesting.
Does that look better to you? Flickr does preserve colour profiles as you would expect.
Of course, it may still be too saturated for your taste but that would surprise me since you're such a big fan of CIELAB a* and b* boosting
Cheers,
Rick.
Hi Rick,
No they look about the same to me.
I am a fan of LAB mode but only when the colours are washed out.
I was only talking about a very slight 10% reduction.
Just keep it the way it is if you like that.
I was nit picking & I shouldn't have said it.
Not saying there is or you did anything wrong mate(I am a big fan of your work)I mean to say, the brighness in part of the Barnards Loop is very strong but the Ha signal looks week.
Yet It dips down in brighness heading towards the stronger signal towards the centre?
So,I did wonder If this was a result of non linear manipulation?or,this distribution of brightness was there from initial linear stretch?I havent had much time on this object Rick so I find the dynamic range here interesting.
No probs, Louie. I wasn't being sensitive. I often learn a lot from these discussions.
I did do more than just a stretch (which is by nature non-linear like the response of our eyes to light intensity.) I compressed the dynamic range in some of the brightest areas so that the dust and structure was visible. I tried to do this fairly gently. I also did the usual S-curve contrast thing. Most images of M78 appear to do something similar to emphasise the interesting stuff.
I have attached a Luminance that has had no processing apart from a simple stretch just in case you're interested in what the vanilla data looked like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
Hi Rick,
No they look about the same to me.
I am a fan of LAB mode but only when the colours are washed out.
I was only talking about a very slight 10% reduction.
Just keep it the way it is if you like that.
I was nit picking & I shouldn't have said it.
cheers
Allan
I do tend to go for bright, saturated colours Allan. Maybe I'll get over it one day Jay GaBany mentioned in one of his talks at the AAIC year before last that it's hard to compete with all the high impact images that people see all around them these days. I find that non astro people prefer images even more saturated than I can handle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rod771
Very nice Rick! Love the colours and its a great way the frame M78 if you have the FOV. You've just got it upside down.
Ta, Rod. Not sure if the location of the scope or the location of the processor takes precedence wrt orientation
