Need more time on this one...Eye of God

[bloodhound31]

While shooting the Lagoon all night last night, there came a point where I was faced with an azimuth flip, which I am hesitant to do....

So, while considering packing up and heading in, I had a flick through the tour function and lo and behold...what's this? The Helix?

Well, I had almost forgotten about this beauty so I thought I wpould have a go as it was still only four in the morning and there was still some dark left.

There was a bit of dew in the sky by then and I only got a few 10 minute subs. I had to reject a few because the moisture in the air was bouncing orange street light sky glow around like crazy.

I had to stretch the heck out of it but hey, do what you can huh?

I can't wait to do this again in about a month and do it properly!

Baz.

Black Diamond ED120APO, Orion Starshoot Pro DSI OS CCD camera.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Come up well Baz for only a few images. It a big target and looks like the 120 works well on this sort of object. Starting to get the outer rings in the image. Look forward to seeing a bit more exposure on Helix.

Well done.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

its on its way, a few more subs will fill out the density , pity you have to fight the streetlights

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Baz,

Hope you don't mind me messing with your images but Gradient Xterminator cleans it up the sky glow nicely.

Peter

[Ric]

That's a very nice capture for only a few subs.

Definitely might be worth a revisit for more data.

Cheers

[bloodhound31]

Cheers guys,

I'm going to wait until a couple of new-moons passed and go for an all-nighter on it. I simply love this object!

Thanks Peter, that looks good. What's that program you used? Can I get it? Is it freeware? Is it a PS plug-in?

Baz.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

It's a PS plug-in. Unfortunately not free but it does do a great job at removing gradients in two easy steps.

http://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/


It is possible to replicate this with a whole series (15) of PS steps but with my location just a few km's from the city and the skyglow that comes with city living it was worth purchasing.

Peter

[madwayne (Wayne)]

Hi Baz

Great image, I did what Peter did but with Noiseware. It is freeware but only does Jpegs in it's freeware version. Cleaned the noise up beautifully in the Helix but not the sky glow.

All the same it will be great to see your final version in a month or two.

Wayne

[bluescope]

You definitely should consider buying GradienXTerminator Baz ... it's only US$50 but it makes dealing with LP gradients much simpler and more effective than any other method that I know of

The Helix is also on my list for revisiting this winter ... nice start.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi Barry,

Nice shot!

I dont know if this is cheating but all I have done to the second pic is set the black point in GIMP to one of the "black" areas of space. Not sure if this removes much or any of the detail?

Feel free to rubbish me, not sure if it makes an improvement?

Hope you dont mind.....'


Cheers

Chris