Ngc 3579

[GodsPetMonkey]

So it's been a while since I did any astrophotography... between life and everything else I didn't set up the 'scope at all in 2021, the start of 2022 was a washout here in SEQ (both on the ground and in the sky!), and I still have a backlog of imaging from 2020 that I haven't found the time or energy to process.

But around April we had some parting in the clouds and I got the bug again. I was rusty as all get-up, so I trusted what NINA suggested, PHD complained that my dec backlash was nasty... sure, I'll fix that later. I just put my faith in the gear, and that I could remember the proper spacings for everything and let it run. Same went for my eventual processing... just keep pressing buttons until it looks good.

Sometimes, everything just comes together. Somehow I ended up with what's probably my best image yet, completely by accident it feels.


Full version here.

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Love it! Too good for here but thanks for giving the beginners something to aspire to. Great detail and colours, like you said, sometimes results go beyond your expectations.

[Dave882 (David)]

Stunning pic. You certainly pulled it all together well and don’t look too rusty at all! Great job

[GodsPetMonkey]

Stunning pic. You certainly pulled it all together well and don’t look too rusty at all! Great job

Thanks! But trust me, based on my attempts this weekend to work with some of my older data from 2020 suggests that lightning does indeed strike only once!


Being reflective, maybe there is something to a decent break helping overcome bad practices... being rusty forced me to play with things to try to remember what they did, that's let me focus more on what looks good now rather than what has worked for me in the past.


I also started to play with narrowband just as the pandemic started, and have really enjoyed the light pollution fighting attributes of really narrow filters and when processing its liberating to basically present the results how you want them to look rather than worrying about colour accuracy or other objective correctness. It allows you to be artistic in rendering the data (and I say that as a totally non-artistic person!).


My broadband imaging, however, is a complete disaster.

[Sunfish (Ray)]

A great big brave field . Very good colour choices and framing.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

That's really very nice. Well done!!!

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Bravo, sir! Bravo!

[xelasnave]

Magnificent

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Stunning! Those loops look almost like plasma following magnetic field lines. Beautiful images like this make me realise that a narrowband filter isn’t far away :-) Alex

[oska (John)]

So much depth. Love it.