Very nice tweaking Paul. One technique to recover from oversharpened stars is the Noel Carboni action "more fuzzy less crunchy" which works well.
All it is though is simply:
1. Colour range tool select the stars and then expand the selection 2or 3 pixels.
2. Gaussian blur to suit.
3. Deselect.
Layers are a cool way to control processing flows. CS4 does that. I just ordered the CS5 upgrade which gets released the end of April.
That's a nice offer from GSO. I think it makes a lot of business sense for them to offer you that as I haven't seen any other images from this scope that match yours.
The first thing I want to see when I look at buying a scope are the images others have taken using one. If you can't find any I tend not to buy otherwise its all sales pitch and no proof.
I see Astronomics have a listing for the 12 inch for US$4495. Perhaps that is the Al tubed scope. A 16 inch truss is planned by year end so you've got a nice upgrade path ahead of you there.
Greg GSO have promised to do a deal with me on the 12" for the promotional stuff that my images and reviews have done for their sales. Time will tell if they are serious about this offer. At any rate these scopes are nicely figured and as many can see will produce pretty reasonable images even for a hack like me.
Thanks once again. Much respected.
Yeh Paul well this should add to the notion of just how good these little RC's are! (and how good your use of them is too!). That is - they are about as good as a US$10 000 6" APO:
I downloaded your image and coregistered it to my award winning image taken in 2006 so the FOV's matched, MATE!!! they could be twins
Thanks Greg, I will take a look at those instructions and sort those stars. Not sure about getting a 16 inch though. My obs would not be able to take that. However the 12 should be pretty good.
Mike, interesting comparison between the two scopes. Certainly hard to tell them apart. Although I have now done a repro and am more happy with the overal look. Some green caste in the outer areas which will not budge. Noise is just a little more evident but the look of the galaxy is less flat I think.
The really interesting thing about doing a comparison such as this is that people now have the option to which route they go with optical equipment and that is only going to force the price down lower still on the really expensive gear. The consumer is benefitting from all these new advances.
Mike, interesting comparison between the two scopes. Certainly hard to tell them apart. Although I have now done a repro and am more happy with the overal look. Some green caste in the outer areas which will not budge. Noise is just a little more evident but the look of the galaxy is less flat I think.
Yes the new colours are better. I actually prefer a very small amount of noise in an image, absolutely no noise just doesn't look natural to me, usually having been caused artificially with a PS filter or similar.
Quote:
The really interesting thing about doing a comparison such as this is that people now have the option to which route they go with optical equipment and that is only going to force the price down lower still on the really expensive gear. The consumer is benefitting from all these new advances.
The reality is that the AP gear is just so perfect on delivery, from the optics to the adapters, FF'ners, reducers etc, get the right pieces and they are the best you can buy, fit and finish as well as robustness...the wait for the scopes kills most people though . Of course little in the ready made market can compete with the AP corrected fields either in size or tightness.
Visually I wouldn't be surprised if the 6" APO outperformed an 8" RC in raw resolution and contrast given it has no central obstruction? On all but the most perfect nights of seeing (only saw this once) my AP152 showed cripser, sharper better resolved stars and more contrasty views than my 12" SCT, obvously they weren't as bright though.
When we compare the prices and waiting periods as long as you know how to upgrade'em properly, from what I've seen the GSO RC's look to be dam good value .
Exactly right Mike. With the AP you pay for the ready perfect and no fussing is needed.
As for the AP on visual, there is no contest. No obstruction verses 40 odd percent obstruction; that mate is a no brainer. I would take an 8" AP any day of the week over the RC, but having to buy a scope this one will have to do. You know anyone who wants to give away an 8" AP?
Yeah value for money for sure with the RC. I bet RCOS are wondering what will happen in the next 5 years.
Whatever tweaks you did to the image it now looks perfect to me.
A fantastic result Paul. Right up there.
My only comment is that it peeved me to think that your 8 inch RC seems to have produced an image that I would be thrilled for my $25,000 TEC180 to produce!!!
Your camera is also a winner and that helps a lot too with that OAG to give nice round stars which is the constant battle in this hobby.
Well done.
I agree I wouldn't be buying shares in RCOS right now but then they may be pushing their market frontiers in other directions like the Military judging from their website. Probably more lucrative for them anyway.
Thanks Greg. I sat there last night and started from scratch and did the repro with a view to get more blue stars into the image.
Don't be too peeved, I am sure you TEC is a great scope and it would not have had some of the issues I had to sort and some that I still have to sort yet. Then again I did make a substantial saving.
The camera is very good but the cooling could be a lot better. The FLI unit has way better cooling and is not much bigger really. Cooler night time temps have changed how cold I can get the sensor, but summer is a problem. Maybe the water unit is the go after all.
Paul & Michael, You guys should blink the two images and see if anything has changed or shown up.
Might be an undiscovered nova in there.
Cheers,
Duncan
Hi Paul, your doing some very nice images with the GSO RC.
This image has turned out well,..
however, I think you'll find your background data clipped fairly well into the dark point. I think this is why your having a bit of trouble with things..
If you use PS, then keep a check on your histogram, it is your friend!
What I did just to check if it was my LCD, btw I calibrate my monitor with spyder3 so when I'm processing to publish on the net, I know where I'm at for sRGB 2.1 color space, which I tag my images with before saving the Jpeg.
This is a basic trick with levels and one I was told about years ago as I couldn't sort my backgrounds very well. and still have dramas at times, especially after doing any gradient removal.
I did it quickly in CS3 with your image and it improved your back ground no end, got rid of a lot of the noise, green tinge and colour speckle. It does look very good with just this simple routine, it looks very smooth.
Ok,go into PS CS or what ever version PS you have, go to- Image/ adjustments/ levels.. now double click on the black eye dropper (far left of the 3 under options). This will open up the 'target color shadow' I generally go for around r=27 g=26 b=27.. click ok this box will close, but the levels interface will still be open, now with the eye dropper tool, select an area of your background, at all times have your 'Info' box to the R/H side open, this will tell you the mix of RGB you have. Try different areas on the background until you come up with a pleasing back ground mix colour and that the 'Info' box tells you are pretty close to the desire rgb levels... generally your after close to dark grey/ charcoal....
You might find the back ground too light for your taste, just pull the 'dark point level slider' further over to the R/H side but don't go into your histogram.
Have attached just a quickie to show you what I came up with just doing the above. Hope you don't mind, thought you might like to be made aware of this.
Heaps of data here, looks very smooth.... what do you think??
Rich I knew the image was clipped and this is typically uncharacteristic for my images as you wil find. I was using it to hide some noise and gradients in the image. I will investigate the instructions you have given and see how that works for me. Thanks for taking the time to do so.
What an inspiring image, Paul. I have spent many hours gazing at this wonderful galaxy in my SDM scope, and it is my favourite galaxy in the southern sky by a country mile. To be able to see so much fine detail in your image is a real thrill. I notice particularly the two quite large field galaxies....I wonder what magnitude they are, and whether under ideal conditions I would have any hope of seeing them (with a bucket of "averted imagination"??).
Anyway, an absolute cracker. Thanks for posting this great image.
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. Of course little in the ready made market can compete with the AP corrected fields either in size or tightness. 
