M42 and 43 and a bit of the Running Man. I have tried to capture as much of the detail of the tendrils of luminosity and the dust lanes that seem to radiat out of M43. The price seems to be the Trapezium. Can anyone suggest a processing device that could give the best of both worlds here. This imae is 21x300secs as ISO 400 on a Canon 1000D (unmodd'd) through a 200mm Newtonian with an MPCC. DSS and curves, colour and saturation in PS.
Peter
Take some separate shots of the trapezium area at lower exposure rates, so it's not blown out. Open this image in Photoshop, create a new layer, copy the main image (blown) to the 2nd layer. Then layer mask and paint in the correctly exposed trapezium sections. I'm not sure on what sort of feathering might be needed to joing the 2 images together.
Dave
PS I haven't actually done this myself (yet) - but I have read about the basic principles in several websites/books, etc to get the general gist. I'm sure others on IIS will be able to be more precise in their suggestions/help.
Take some 30 second subs, stack 'em as a separate image.
Cut and paste it on top of the long exposure stack.
You're working in layers now.
Lower the opacity of the short sub image to 50% so you can just see it on top of the long exp. image then using the mouse and cursers move it so it's exactly aligned.
You'll need to play around with each image now, adjusting opacity, levels, curves till can see the trap but still retain most of the outer nebulosity.
Time to flatten the image. Maybe do a little more adjusting if you feel it needs it.
For a quick fix for now, take your long exposure and tone it right down till you can see the Trap, save it as a different file, then layer it on top of the brighter long exp. image.
thats how i've done it in the past and i found it works brilliantly, however it sometimes takes a little fiddling to get the resulting image looking natural... well worth the effort.
This is exactly the method I did for this shot a few years ago: see attached - it works quite well, the idea of taking short exposures isn't that necessary IMO.
I used an Orion 80ED, small chip SXV-H9 CCD camera, 1.25" astronomik LRGB filters and 5min sub exposures all round.
By the way, that is a beautiful rendition of the sword Peter, once you bring out the core a bit better and be careful here it is very easy to make it look unnatural, you will have a fantastic shot for sure.
Ps.. Peter, Get that QHY8 out of its box and into your scope!!!! Use it or lose it (read: Use it, or im going to... Confiscate it..)
Now Alex, don't be bashful. What are you trying to say??
Ah yes. You can be certain that the big black box will be out and running hot (cold) on October New Moon.
Peter
Yeah, using the Gstar Ex through my 10" Dob. You should see it blown up on the big screen, watching it in real time. Awesome.
Might have another go at it with my 8".
Fred V. (Bassnut) did a close up with his 12" SCT @ F/10 with his Sbig ST10 that pretty much only shows the trap... its fairly amazing... I have 1x30 second sub of it from my C11 @ F/10 with a DBK31, which is much less amazing than freds close up, but it does split the trap to 5 stars...
Wow! This is very very nice indeed. Focus is spot on. Great data. All the rest is processing but you've nailed the data IMO. Well done.
The core is a bit burnt already but I played with the shadow/highlights and curves in PS to bring up a bit more data. It's a really good picture. Hope you don't mind.
Wow! This is very very nice indeed. Focus is spot on. Great data. All the rest is processing but you've nailed the data IMO. Well done.
The core is a bit burnt already but I played with the shadow/highlights and curves in PS to bring up a bit more data. It's a really good picture. Hope you don't mind.
I'm blown away by the extra definition you have been able to coax out. I know it was there from the DSS results but couldn't get it to come out. Thanks. That's a definite keeper.
Peter
Ps.. Peter, Get that QHY8 out of its box and into your scope!!!! Use it or lose it (read: Use it, or im going to... Confiscate it..)
Spurred on by your threat of confiscation - voila, a little Lagoon: Didn't exactly nail the focus - it was low in the west and this was done in haste - to avoid the wrath of Alex.
Nice one Peter.. Did you know if you feed it photons it will grow?? Ok, so thats a lie.. but its still a good idea to keep feeding it photons as often as you can spare the time.. it will make it a healthy QHY8!
Use it or lose it (read: Use it, or im going to... Confiscate it..)
This is very very nice indeed. Focus is spot on. Great data. All the rest is processing but you've nailed the data IMO. Well done. 
