NGC 2070 Now 4 Hours

[Atmos (Colin)]

I had planned on getting 4 hours last night but the fog started rolling in early morning. Got the first hour fine but then I had to ditch everything afterwards.

Processing is a bit harsh and very quick, contemplating getting some more data tonight but I am having some reservations as to how worthwhile it is on the long term. Trying to decide whether I should just be sticking to Narrowband when imaging from Melbourne.

3xRGB 400s

Link to Astrobin "original"
Link to reworked

[RickS (Rick)]

Detail is not too bad but the colour is very weird for an RGB image.

[Atmos (Colin)]

I live in the northern burbs of Melbourne and this is sitting pretty much over the CBD 20 km away, it wouldn't surprise me if this was doing a bit of damage to the green channel :/
Either that or I killed it a bit when I was trying to remove some of the extra green overcast.

[LewisM]

Looks more like the filters are mixed.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Some lovely detail showing up there already, great stuff Colin. As mentioned the colours do look like something may have occurred with your filter assigning ...Mike BJ (Placidus) will love the palette though, actually I think it is officially known as the MBJ Palette now

Man! doesn't bloody weather have the capacity to ruin an imaging session errr? bit off topic but.. I drove out to my observatory on Tues arvo, madly mowed the lawn and did the edges around the observatory before dusk, opened up, initialised, made the files etc and got everything ready then waited for darkness, acquired the field, matched the framing with previous data (human plate solving) acquired a guide star was all ready, ok here we go - press start...1min in to the first sub, lost guide star warning sounded ...look out of dome WHAT?? walk outside look up "SHIGHT"...cloud everywhere ...wait for 1hr, have two beers, eat some chips, still cloud ...shut down drive home with nothing...except a tidy observing area

Mike

[Atmos (Colin)]

Early on in the piece I thought I may have mixed my Green and Blue filters around, when imaging M42 I am getting correct colour so they're correct.

On my first attempt at M42 before I got my guider set up, I was getting a strange green cast in the centre of the nebula with 60s exposures. At 200s that vanished and was getting correct colour cast.

I have a feeling that the light pollution is throwing the colour balance out by overly (more than it should) saturating the green channel compares to the others. Even when you do a colour calibration the signal may still be strong enough to cause an issue. Thinking it may be best to just do narrowband until I get my rural property set up for setting up :-)

Thanks Mike I tried getting another 3 hours of data last night but the seeing was pretty terrible so I'll probably just scrap all that. I'll have to give the current hour another shot and see if I can fix the colour.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

I agree with your plan to go to NB. For emission nebulae, if you have the filters, Narrowband absolutely rules, even from a pitch black dark site.

Good filters let through 90% of the nebulosity and almost none of the rubbish. As you say, from a light polluted site, the argument is persuasive.

As others have said, your detail is looking good.

Best,
Mike

[LewisM]

Colin, I live in the centre of absolute sordid light pollution and never had that issue with either mono or OSC.

Are you SURE you are assigning the filters properly? Heck, shine a light through to confirm their colours

Something *simple* seems to be going wrong with the images - and it seems to be related to blue.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

good detail Colin.

I switched the red and blue channels in your image and it looks a lot like other images on the www (actually very nice by comparison) - maybe your filter wheel is doing strange things?

[Atmos (Colin)]

Problem solved!

After Shiraz mentioned that swapping the channels made it look closer to real I did a channel swap with my M42... It made it interesting

I then went and compared mine to one that popped up on Google Images, was pretty far off. Went into PI and flipped the Red and Blue channels from the data files (BGR), although it didn't look too bad the issue was the stars in the centre of the nebula had turned red. Created another one with the correct channels (RGB) and the stars went blue.

So, what I have discovered is that I am a very poor image processor haha

I have gone and reworked it from scratch and I am a lot happier with this result. Thanks everyone for the scrutiny Hopefully it is a mistake that I won't make again (secretly I know i will).

To Astrobin

[RobF (Rob)]

Now you're cooking with gas Colin!
Top shot!

[Shiraz (Ray)]

looking really good Colin - would probably also be worth more data if you can put up with the LP.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

yep much better now Colin!


Cheers

Russ

[Atmos (Colin)]

Got another three hours in last night, probably a couple of frames that need to be chucked out but haven't gotten that far yet. Ideally I am aiming for 20 hours in RGB (forgetting L as it sits right over Melbourne CBD) but not sure if I'll get there yet
Actually tried some noise reduction this time, hasn't gone over too bad, tried masking most of the image for protection but I still have a LOT of learning to use. Rick throws around so many acronyms around that it just melts my brain

Astrobin

[RickS (Rick)]

That's looking nice now, Colin!

Originally Posted by Atmos

Rick throws around so many acronyms around that it just melts my brain

Too many years in the computer industry

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

There is some seriously nice detail coming out in that latest version Collin.
Kept me occupied for a while wandering around in there and having a look.
R

[Atmos (Colin)]

Thanks Rick and Rodney, I am glad to be finally getting this setup working to at least some of its potential.
After I get some more time on this target I'll be able to remove most of the bad subs and start drizzling out a bit more detail.

Still in two minds as to whether it is going to be worth while getting luminance from my current location or just reserve it for a dark site.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Ahhh, now were're talking Colin the colour is excellent

Mike