Running Man Nebula CDK17

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

That's a really nice image Greg. You've brought out the subtle beauty very nicely. I see what you mean about the reflections though - definitely need to fix that. Although, for very bright stars just out of field I'd expect to see some glare. With my Horsey I had to process out several lens flare looking artefacts ... and my Tak is baffled to the hilt!

Cheers, Marcus

[avandonk]

It is a really nice image Greg. The trouble is with 17'' of aperture the bright stars are massively overexposed. You are a bit better off at f/6.8 as compared to f/10 by about a factor of four in the ratio of nebula brightness compared to star brightness.

Sharpening massively over exposed stars is a waste of time. What you need to do is use short exposures to delineate the brighter stars and then blend by HDR.

Here is an example of what HDR can do for bright star sizes. 600k

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co..._10/hdrm42.gif

Here is your image compared with the same area taken with the 300mm lens 1.6MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...10_10/grb1.gif

Note my bright stars are at about the same size as yours!

Bert

[bartman (Bart)]

Maybe a Long Neck Turtle......
Still cant see a man running......
Bartman

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Nice Greg. Smooth detail and nice contrast. I wonder if some Ha will have an impact on this image. Not much red in this region so I suppose not but those dust lanes might contain a lot of Ha.

Ha on this object doesn't look the best. It tends to make it more like a blob. The dust would come out anyway with extra exposure time so I'll see how that goes. Its no trouble to take some Ha once it is higher up in the sky rather than 3 in the morning!

Originally Posted by Martin Pugh

Great image Greg, and such short exposure time - I guess that's what 17" of aperture at f6.8 brings you. I agree that it could do with a tad more sharpening.

cheers
Martin

Thanks Martin.

Originally Posted by Tom Davis

Excellent!!

Tom

Thanks Tom.

Originally Posted by bartman

Absolutely beautiful!
However....hehehehhe
I STILL CANT SEE A RUNNING MAN!http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/....eyepopping.gif
all I can see is ( apart from the beautiful pic), is a Goanna.....
I ps'd this...
Hope you dont mind.................
Bartman

That's funny. Maybe we should call it the Goanna chasing a long neck turtle nebula!

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

That's a really nice image Greg. You've brought out the subtle beauty very nicely. I see what you mean about the reflections though - definitely need to fix that. Although, for very bright stars just out of field I'd expect to see some glare. With my Horsey I had to process out several lens flare looking artefacts ... and my Tak is baffled to the hilt!

Cheers, Marcus

Thanks Marcus. I have started chasing down the reflections. I see the baffle tube already has 3 baffles in it. Also the tube is threaded to reduce reflections. I think the first place to start is the adapter. The mirror also has an aperture ring around it which is a good thing too.
I had a bad reflection with my AP140 once and it was from the adapter and that fixed it. I agree off axis bright stars may be hard to handle.

Originally Posted by avandonk

It is a really nice image Greg. The trouble is with 17'' of aperture the bright stars are massively overexposed. You are a bit better off at f/6.8 as compared to f/10 by about a factor of four in the ratio of nebula brightness compared to star brightness.

Sharpening massively over exposed stars is a waste of time. What you need to do is use short exposures to delineate the brighter stars and then blend by HDR.

Here is an example of what HDR can do for bright star sizes. 600k

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co..._10/hdrm42.gif

Here is your image compared with the same area taken with the 300mm lens 1.6MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...10_10/grb1.gif

Note my bright stars are at about the same size as yours!

Bert

Thanks Bert. I'll check into that. Stars don't always oversaturate at 10 mins at the F6.8 but this object has several quite bright stars.
Very cool comparison before and after and that overlay.


Greg.

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

After the heavy weather of the last few days last night was gorgeous.

Totally clear all night and reasonable seeing.

I caught up on a few images.

Orion now is rising and is quite high in the sky in the early morning.

Planewave CDK17, Paramount ME, FLI Proline 16803, Astrodon Gen 11 LRGB filters.

LRGB 30 30 20 20.

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/129483539/large

Greg.

Very nice Greg, what is amazing is the amount of data you got with so little integration.. amazing what big sizes can do!

Clear Skies
Marco

[Hagar (Doug)]

Well Greg what can I say: Absolutely stunning.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by marco

Very nice Greg, what is amazing is the amount of data you got with so little integration.. amazing what big sizes can do!

Clear Skies
Marco

Yes the large aperture is a luxury.

Originally Posted by Hagar

Well Greg what can I say: Absolutely stunning.

Thanks Doug. Some images when they download you know will work out well. Others not so much. This one looked good in the intial downloads.

Greg.

[TheDecepticon]

It is a very lovely image.

The CDK and the Proline work well together.

Just a bit over smooth for me, but what would I know!

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by TheDecepticon

It is a very lovely image.

The CDK and the Proline work well together.

Just a bit over smooth for me, but what would I know!

Thanks. It is a bit oversmooth as it lacks exposure time really. Another 2 hours will bring this one up. It really was only available at about 3am and you can only image at the moment until about 5am.

So next no moon weeks I'll add some more and I can sharpen it then.

If you try to sharpen an image with not enough exposure it seems to only highlight noise.

Greg.