Helix nebula Bicolour

[gregbradley]

Quite a nice Helix there. I would have expected a bit more from 18 hours though. Did you use any 2x2 or was it all 1x1? On your 14.5 2x2 may make more sense as 9 microns is the better match for your optics. Then again the broader Ha wings are further out in the FOV.

An unusual colour scheme for bicolour. Usually it would look different than that but its all fair in narrowband.

As Mike said the biggest gain would be to add some brief short exposure RGB stars to the image.

A massive improvement over the earlier version.

Greg.

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

That's a very nice Helix Aidan, colours look nice and your goal of revealing the globules was certainly well met. Minor suggestion, perhaps you might consider adding some separate star data just to clean up a few of the wonky ones there a tad? But yep, always good to reminisce, just to see how far you have come, so well done there

Mike

Thanks Mike, i am keen to get in some RGB stars, i would assume that to do that you first do a starless NB image then include the RGB data with a star mask, but i have no idea how to get the starless version in the first place using PS. do you need a plug in to do the interpolation ? i would imagine that just doing a star mask wont quite work as well as it is difficult to get it looking good and avoid getting strange halos ...

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Quite a nice Helix there. I would have expected a bit more from 18 hours though. Did you use any 2x2 or was it all 1x1? On your 14.5 2x2 may make more sense as 9 microns is the better match for your optics. Then again the broader Ha wings are further out in the FOV.

An unusual colour scheme for bicolour. Usually it would look different than that but its all fair in narrowband.

As Mike said the biggest gain would be to add some brief short exposure RGB stars to the image.

A massive improvement over the earlier version.

Greg.

Hi Greg, all of the data was 2x2. it just seems to be much better for my set up. as far as getting more from 18 hours, i was going for the hubble look http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0305/helix03_hst.jpg which is also the reason for the colour scheme. i am actually really happy with the colours, perhaps not what everyone would choose but i think it is quite striking. i actually noticed that the old image was taken with the PMX ... so i am really happy with how i have improved over the last 12 months. no image is perfect, but this is definitely my best one yet.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Somnium

Thanks Mike, i am keen to get in some RGB stars, i would assume that to do that you first do a starless NB image then include the RGB data with a star mask, but i have no idea how to get the starless version in the first place using PS. do you need a plug in to do the interpolation ? i would imagine that just doing a star mask wont quite work as well as it is difficult to get it looking good and avoid getting strange halos ...

Hmmm? well, I would just do a simple RGB combine with say 10-20min of each then blend it with your final NB image in what ever waiting's make your stars look the colour you would like them for the final NB presentation (usually not pure RGB) then select just the stars (colour range > highlights or Noel Carboni's select RGB stars action) and copy and past them back into your original final NB version, feathering etc and blend to taste using PS blend mode...easy

Mike

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Hmmm? well, I would just do a simple RGB combine with say 10-20min of each then blend it with your final NB image in what ever waiting's make your stars look the colour you would like them for the final NB presentation (usually not pure RGB) then select just the stars (colour range > highlights or Noel Carboni's select RGB stars action) and copy and past them back into your original final NB version, feathering etc and blend to taste using PS blend mode...easy

Mike

ahh so straight forward then

i will give it a go on my next NB image, with my worm gear replaced i am looking at focusing on new targets. making a clean break from the 8" RA variability that i had with the old worm.

[vlazg (George)]

Fantastic Aidan, great to see you have solved your mount problems

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by vlazg

Fantastic Aidan, great to see you have solved your mount problems

Thanks George, it certainly looks like the issues are solve, but this was taken while still dealing with the tracking problems. i am looking forward to seeing how i go with sub arc second PE