Horsehead - Deep & Wide (ish) Field - Page 2

Bolts_Tweed (Mark) · #21 20-10-2009, 05:59 PM

Well its not really a repro cause its not even a full image yet but I visited Mikes site and saw the greyscale calibration image and calibrated this monitor hopefully to show it the way I was trying to process it. I saw it on a mates computer and it looked a lot darker than i would like. I know the pallette is strange but it is all experimentation at this stage. Also used the Colour Range selection to drop the pink a bit.

For what its worth this might be closer to how I originally processed it.

Mark Bolton

AlexN · #22 20-10-2009, 06:49 PM

Holy Bat Poop Batman!!

Yep, you sure got some data in there Mark.. Amazing work...

I might just link this for your viewing pleasure... After seeing Rogelio Andreo's Orion widefield, I thought to myself.. yep Mark will get a kick out of this....

LOOK AT ME!!

Bolts_Tweed (Mark) · #23 20-10-2009, 07:21 PM

Gday Mate

yeah I know Mr Gendlers shot. Definately amazing. The contrast in the dust (I suspect from a Ha luminosity channel) is incredible. It was a combination of him and Rogelio Andreo that got me started on this faint dust hunt - damn them

.

What used to be sweet little 8 or 10 minute images of M42 have become all night marathons but what the heck - ya gotta push your previous limits I suppose.

My favourite saying to the mates at Leyburn is that Astrophotgraphy is more like Golf than Chess. The aim is to lower your handicap not to beat the other guy. Once you are a Tiger Woods then I suppose you can compete but I am still hacking around cow paddocks looking for lost balls at the moment.

What does amaze me but is how far we advance due to technology and I suppose a few skills we pick up. I had a look at my horse head from last season and I wouldnt even print it out now. But then if I had gotten last years image a few years ago on Fuji 800 I would have been sending it to magazines (and probably wondering why they didnt publish it

).

Will keep you up to date on the Mosaic. No more now until next month (could have done some after the moon this weekend but I have to go to Nambucca for a funeral). I have 4 x 15 mintes of the next frame done and it looks promising but I need those 30 mins to bring out that faint dust.

M

AlexN · #24 20-10-2009, 07:28 PM

I agree completely regarding the Golf comment... I too did some comparisons just recently..

I started seriously imaging deep sky in September last year.. I compared my very first astro image from September 9 last year (M8) to my version of M8 that I completed September 8 this year.. There is just NO comparison... None what so ever.. I've been systematically imaging targets I imaged last year and doing comparisons, and I've found one thing is certain.. Im headed in the right direction!

Its funny as you say... Last year when I did the first M8 image, I was SOO happy with it, I now get a giggle when I look at it.. its nothing in comparison to my current work, but at the time I was amazed..

I'm heading to dark skies this coming weekend and will be running some 30min exposures on the horse head to see what I can find..

I'll be happy if it comes out anywhere near what yours has!

Hagar (Doug) · #25 20-10-2009, 09:07 PM

Very nice Mark, you seem to have lost much of the colour variation in the flame and much of the finer detail in the flame also. May be a little lighter on the stretch and you will keep this detail and colour but you may also loose some of the overall bright colour.
Nice image all the same. Love the mosaic idea.

Bolts_Tweed (Mark) · #26 20-10-2009, 10:52 PM

yeah Hagar I agree. I cant get the hang of this monitor brightness calibration thing through my head. As I said - the original image prints good on my laser by looks too dark on the web.

I have adjusted brightness & contrast on this second image (as well as the pink adjustment - just not butch enough) but I agree the Flame now lacks variation.

I'm gathering tips for now and this comment is good as it is another check in the processing of the mosaic. I think the whole thing will need changing when I get more dark background in the image. I suppose I could just cheat and mask it through

.

Thanks for the input - all advice is welcome - especially at this stage of the process (well any stage really). Imaging this faint dust is all new to me.

Mark

Octane (Humayun) · #27 21-10-2009, 02:40 PM

Mark,

Spectacular. Benchmark for the season thus far.

P.S. Masking is not cheating.

Regards,
Humayun

Bolts_Tweed (Mark) · #28 21-10-2009, 04:22 PM

Thanks for the kind words H.

I agree mate regarding masking - it is just a bit of an in joke at Leyburn at the moment. There are about 8 or so masks in this as it is with the MLDB, HighPass and background smoothing.

I have actually done it (masked the flame) after Hagars comments (which i agree with) and it came out much better - amazing how I was concentrating on brightening the brown dust and losing the pink in the saturated part of the HII in the processing and didnt even notice the loss in the flame once I was happy with the rest. That is the attention to detail required and why these forums are an asset.

Anyway this first frame is printed now and it can go straight to the poolroom (if I had one)

Thx again

mark