Thanks Greg, Barry, Doug and Ray for your comments. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Higbyrichard
A great image Paul,
I and I am sure others have followed with interest the images you are taking with the GSO RC12. Really interesting to see you push this scope.
I would have thought that 20 minute subs might have washed out star colour. You proved me wrong.
Inspirational images Mate.
|
Thanks Richard. There is an idea that has been getting around based on the physics of any given sensor that short subs of 5-10 minutes is the right exposure length. In fact there have been several discussions about this very issue here on IIS. Some of the confirmation arguments have been that going longer means that you will end up with satellite trails and wind gusts and guiding etc that could effectively destroy the sub. Where I image from, wind gusts at night are almost non existent and it is rare that there is wind at that site during the night. Its and odd thing, but pleasing. Satellite trails can be removed via data rejection techniques. Guiding errors etc, have been nulled out to as good as I can get them without using an AOX (which I have now bought). As to star colour, my experiments have shown that I get no discernible change from 5 minutes to 30 minutes in duration. What I have found is the amount of data that helps with star colour. Anything over 100 minutes really helps with processing the star colour. This image has two channels that are a bit short and I had to do a lot of work to bring out the colours. It would have been easier with more data in the colour channels. Others will disagree but I will stick with long subs to pick up more signal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marco
Wow, almost missed this one! Indeed a very fine image Paul, it looks remarkably "natural" yet with lots of details and great color balance, you deserve all the appreciation comments you got!
Regards
Marco
|
Thanks Marco, I am very pleased with the general look of this galaxy but if I picked up double to triple this amount of data I have no doubt more detail could be shown.
One thing I have always tried to do with my processing whether it be planetary, solar or DSO is exhibit fine detail rather than large blocky detail which looks over sharpened. Fine detail processing (which I developed whilst doing a lot of planetary imaging) gives a sharper look in my opinion and has to be applied with selective masking techniques. As you would know, there is a fine line between looking sharp and over sharpened. Something that looks natural can be very hard to achieve and having good data to start with makes that possible. Poor data or a lack of it makes achieving that look nearly impossible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rex
Smashing image Paul, top notch! The detail in that dust lane is incredible. Congratulations on a stunning result.
|
Thanks Rex. I am pleased with how the dust lane detail looks. My previous long focal length attempt was pretty ordinary in comparison. I will have to re image this object next year with the use of the AOX just to see if I can get sharper detail in the dust lanes.
