NGC2070 RGB 2hours + ha blend

[multiweb (Marc)]

Here's my first shot from this week-end. I used the Ha data I had taken previously from my home backyard and blended it in as a luminosity layer in PS over the RGB I shot this Saturday in Wiruna.

The Ha was over 3 hours but the RGB is made of 8 subs of 900s each debayered to 3 channels, flat/dark calibrated and stacked in CCD Stack. The Ha layer is only blended at 20% to bring up a bit more of the red nebulosity. It covers only 50% of the RGB frame so I had to cheat a bit in blending the edges. Someone will probably pick up the line All the colors are from the original RGB stack.

The full frame is available at: http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/ngc_2070_cp_f.jpg

The color was taken on my 5" newtonian with a QHY8 and a Baader UHC-S filter booster on a G11 guided with PHD/ED80 and captured in Nebulosity.

Thanks for looking. Comments most welcome.

[Craig_L]

Very nice Marc. I was just about to post a Tarantula widefield. I haven't had much luck with H Alpha images and blending them in. Nice detail.

[AlexN]

Very nice indeed.. I can see the blend line, however you have handled it well.

Alex.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Good work Marc, perhaps a little more colour, elsewise, top guiding focus etc.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Craig_L

Very nice Marc. I was just about to post a Tarantula widefield. I haven't had much luck with H Alpha images and blending them in. Nice detail.

Thanks Craig. That was my first too. Stars are a bit harder to handle with Ha. They tend to have those black outlines real quick.

Originally Posted by AlexN

Very nice indeed.. I can see the blend line, however you have handled it well.

Alex.

Thanks Alex. Yep... Keep it quiet...

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Good work Marc, perhaps a little more colour, elsewise, top guiding focus etc.

Thanks Fred. Glad you like it. Is that the NB retina talking? Now you're used to it you like vivid colours. When I can afford the OIII and SII I'm planning to do a lot more NB from home.

[Garyh]

Nice work Marc! nice tight stars and nice natural color.
I hope to be doing some Ha myself next year to add to the RGB.

[wysiwyg (Mark)]

Nice Work Marc,

perhaps the center is a bit overblown, it might pay to do some masking to bring out the detail in the center. Other wise very sharp and detailed.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Garyh

Nice work Marc! nice tight stars and nice natural color.
I hope to be doing some Ha myself next year to add to the RGB.

Thanks for the comments Gary. Ha is really handy to do from LP skies at home. I keep the color for Wiruna. No point from home.

Originally Posted by wysiwyg

Nice Work Marc,

perhaps the center is a bit overblown, it might pay to do some masking to bring out the detail in the center. Other wise very sharp and detailed.

Thanks Mark. Yeah I had to compress the low res version a fair bit to fit in the 200KB and it kind of brightened up the core abit too. I think the core is nicer on the full res version but you're right, it's a bit too bright at 15min per subs. Maybe I should have chosen a shorter exposure time.

[Astrod00d]

Great image there Marc, lots of detail and good blending of the Ha. The full resolution version seems to have detail to the core, just a bit clipped, perhaps you could try reducing the brightness of the core in PS and see what you get... or, maybe you need to go back to Wiruna and get some more data. Some 300s subs should be about right...

Cheers,

Rob

[gregbradley]

A stunner.

One trick with Ha blending ( one of a few I have developed) is to hammer the background noise a bit before blending.

For example, you assign Ha to a red channel.

Have a look at it now it is red and you'll see quite a bit of general red noisy background as Ha must be fairly dominate in thin amounts in some of these objects.

I run Noise Ninja on it and then move the black point across a bit to knock out this noisy red background to give a cleaner blend of the Ha.
You could alternatively run the noise filter in PS then push the black point over to suit to clean it up a bit.

This will further hide your already almost unnoticeable transition point.

Greg.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Astrod00d

Great image there Marc, lots of detail and good blending of the Ha. The full resolution version seems to have detail to the core, just a bit clipped, perhaps you could try reducing the brightness of the core in PS and see what you get... or, maybe you need to go back to Wiruna and get some more data. Some 300s subs should be about right...

Cheers,

Rob

Thanks Rob. Yeah 15min is a bit too much for the core. I already went as low as I could with the shadow highlight tool in PS before turning grey. I won't say it .... but I'm thinking it Good excuse to go back on boxing day.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A stunner.

One trick with Ha blending ( one of a few I have developed) is to hammer the background noise a bit before blending.

For example, you assign Ha to a red channel.

Have a look at it now it is red and you'll see quite a bit of general red noisy background as Ha must be fairly dominate in thin amounts in some of these objects.

I run Noise Ninja on it and then move the black point across a bit to knock out this noisy red background to give a cleaner blend of the Ha.
You could alternatively run the noise filter in PS then push the black point over to suit to clean it up a bit.

This will further hide your already almost unnoticeable transition point.

Greg.

Cool. Glad you liked it. Thanks for the tip Greg. I'll have to try that. First time I blended Ha in PS. Later I noticed I could do it CCD Stack as well and place it as a luminance channel but I had no control over the blending. I'll play with it anyway.

[jase (Jason)]

For a first attempt as a Ha+RGB blend, you've done a really good job Marc. Still maintained star colours and general hues of the spider. Well done.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by jase

For a first attempt as a Ha+RGB blend, you've done a really good job Marc. Still maintained star colours and general hues of the spider. Well done.

Thanks for the comments and encouragement Jase.