M16, The First Light of my new camera.

[Pilgrim (Igor)]

Image taken from the balcony in Brisbane City during 9 sessions in October-November 2021.
Bortle 7 sky ("red" light pollution zone).

First light of my new ASI2600MM-P camera on TAL-250K (10" Klevtsov-Cassegrain) with 0.7x recucer/flattner MkII (F/6). EQ6-R mount.

Total exposure time is 17 hours, Sensor temperature -10°C
16 hours (180s subs) - H-alpla, SII, OIII,
1 hour (30s subs) - RGB stars

I made classic SHO (Hubble Paltte), then separated the stars, applied RGB colors to them and added em back.

Full Size on Astrobin:

https://www.astrobin.com/i1lmaq/


Hubble comparison just for fun



https://cdn.astrobin.com/images/9937...3f62401070.gif

[gregbradley]

Wow, that is sensational. What a first light! You must be stoked with a result like that.

Tell me more about the scope.

Greg.

[JA]

Well done Igor, that is a SUPERB image

Best
JA

[PKay (Peter)]

Nice work Igor.

The nebulosity is very good with a great range of hues and contrast.
However IMO the stars don't look natural.
There are many ways of doing it, and it's difficult to get right.

Having said that, it is still a top shelf image

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Wonderful result to catch this object so late in the season with such clarity and detail. A great example of what the 2600 is capable of doing in the right hands!

[Bassnut (Fred)]

spectacular!. Very well done

[Startrek (Martin)]

The big effort over many nights has paid off especially imaging M16 on the back end descending into the west
Splendid image, nicely processed
Well done !!
Martin

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Well done - ticks all the boxes!

But... blacks are clipped and the detail within is lost.
A more subtle hand is needed.


Everything else is 1st class, well done!

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Well done - ticks all the boxes!

But... blacks are clipped and the detail within is lost.
A more subtle hand is needed.

Everything else is 1st class, well done!

Hi Andy,

It is a great image.
I don't agree that the blacks are clipped but they are far too low.
In Photoshop they were measuring only about 12 out of 256.
It would have been better to stretch the image in NASA FITS Liberator
before doing the processing.
( I think PixInsight will do that too? )
The stretch function called x^(1/5) would have given
a great compression factor to even out the large dynamic range.


cheers
Allan

[Nikolas (Nik)]

I like it a lot actually, yes it is a little muted but I think it adds something to the image.

[Ant0nio (Tony)]

Well done Igor

[matlud (Mathew)]

Great first light Igor -well done!

[multiweb (Marc)]

One of the best NB shot of the pillars I've seen posted on IIS. Period. Really well done.
I have no idea what people are going on about.

[Addos (Adam)]

very nice! looks like you employed some pretty detailed masking in the post processing too - very impressive!

[Ken]

Well done sharp and vibrant I like it.
Clear skies Ken

[Pilgrim (Igor)]

Hey Greg, JA, Peter, Michael, Fred, Martin, Andy, Allan, Nik, Tony, Mathew, Marc, Adam, Ken!
Thanks to everyone for your comments & compliments!

Originally Posted by Andy01

But... blacks are clipped and the detail within is lost.
A more subtle hand is needed.

Everything else is 1st class, well done!

Thanks Andy! My monitor is calibrated, but I usually finish processing at late night in a dark room, so I tending to make black level closer to zero. Close, but definitely not clipped, I'm keeping a close eye on it.
Anyway after reviewing it in the day, I partially agree with you that it looks too dark, so I made a bit a brighter revision and uploaded the update to Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/i1lmaq/C/)

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Excellent.
Which is the hubble?

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Well done Igor, good work for your location.

[bsteeve (Steeve)]

Beautiful! The 2600mm must be a dream to work with