A mosaic of images taken over 4 nights.
Each of the 4 frames is 60 x 130sec of subs.
AT72EDII with WO 73A flattener
HEQ5Pro, ASI294MCPro, UV/IR cut filter.
While I really appreciate the people who have encouraged me and others on this forum, for this image, if you're going to comment, please tell me something you don't like about the image.
Seriously, I had a long journey with an OSC to get star colour.
It can be very hard to achieve.
The Nebulosity is fine however most stars in your image are saturated.
Maybe back off the gain, or take shorter subs?
Don't know really, it is different for each setup. You have to 'suck it and see'.
Having said that, a good mosaic (a few stitch marks), and they are always tricky.
Good point about the stars. I'll go back and look at the subs to see if the problem was the exposure time or something I've done in processing. I tend to look after the nebulosity and forget about the stars. Something I can improve. Thanks Peter.
Yes I agree. The glob core is burnt out. That may be recoverable by using shadows tool n Photoshop.
Otherwise shorter exposures.
Greg.
I haven't been focusing on the glob core or stars like I should have. Keeping the star colours and brightness under control is something I'll concentrate more on. Thanks Greg.
I agree with the others.
It's a great image except for the mostly all white stars.
With any target -
it's a good idea to always take some short exposures -
say 10 second and maybe a 30 second exposure.
That doesn't take long.
You can even copy and paste the stars over later
into your main image to get some colour.
If you have a program like MaximDl you can even check
your stars while waiting for the next subframe to see
if they have hit the maximum level -
and even get a specific star profile to see if the tips are flattened.
Flat topped stars are blown out.
I love the Rho Ophiuchi System and find it one of the most beautiful parts of the night sky and your image certainly does justice to its majestic colours against a beautiful blue sky, but as others have already mentioned, perhaps at the expense of the star colour/profile.
I still find it a wonderful image my only concern being that, and I know you've mosaiced it, is that the image didn't also include Alniyat II, the star on the other side of Antares. For me when I look up at the night sky I immediately see the location of the Rho Ophiuchi system guided by, for me, its 3 cardinal stars: Alniyat I, Antares and Alniyat II (also called Paikauhale) which form a very wide and almost symmetrical flattened V shape with yellow Antares burning bright at the centre of the V(which is what I look for when locating it).
I appreciate that as a mosaic with your focal length/camera/image scale everything would be more work to fit in, but ...... just sayin' Alniyat II's bluish colour and redish nebulosity surrounding it would add even further to your wonderful image.
Lovely image mate and making a mosaic is always a time consuming and difficult adventure.
One question if you used a telescope why are there what look like small diffraction spikes around some of the stars like a camera lens was used? It appears on the larger version on astrobin
I see what the others have been pointing out re the white stars... but the stars in this area are largely yellow and white stars any way and viewing at screen size on a decent monitor (not a phone screen ) at fit-to-screen size, this is a beautifully sparkling, natural looking, stellar rendition of this area. In the age of artistic interpretation, using narrow band filters, where the imagers imagination is behind the processing and not reality, it is reeeally nice to look at an image that actually looks like a snapshot of the sky, like you are looking at a piece of the sky as it really looks and not an art work, where the stars are there and not removed, bright and shiny...and this is actually much harder to do well. I really like this image
Minor critical feedback, at full resolution it does look just a tad smoothed out buuuut that's only because I felt guilty re your request to only say something I don't like about the image.
PKay and gregbradley - I found the cause of the colourless stars and burn out globular cluster. In my pixinsight processing I used Unsharp Mask on the lum portion of the image, to try to improve sharpness. However, this pushed the small stars to 1.0 and when combined with the RGB it washed out the stars. It works fine for a starless image but I chose to leave the stars in because of all the artifacts when I tried to remove them.
I was able to remove some of the mosaic stitch marks, but not all.
JA - if I get some more telescope time I would like to add to the mosaic and include Alniyat II also.
Nikolas - I noticed the diffraction spikes and I'm going to setup an artificial star in the garage and see if I can find the cause. I suspect it is a second hand field flattener I just started using.
strongmanmike - can you explain to me what you mean by "looks a little smoothed out"? Is it a lack of resolution?
Please take a look at the new image and let me know if the stars still need some work. And thanks again for the help.
) at fit-to-screen size, this is a beautifully sparkling, natural looking, stellar rendition of this area. In the age of artistic interpretation, using narrow band filters, where the imagers imagination is behind the processing and not reality, it is reeeally nice to look at an image that actually looks like a snapshot of the sky, like you are looking at a piece of the sky as it really looks and not an art work, where the stars are there and not removed, bright and shiny...and this is actually much harder to do well. I really like this image 
