AF Omega Centauri

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

This is the last of my Astrofest offerings.
15 x 5 minute subs @ ISO 400
Using the ED80 and Canon 550D
I've reprocessed this one several times and still can't get that core quite the way I want it. But I've done the best I can with the data I have.
My problem I think is wanting Tak results on a Skywatcher budget.

I just completed my repro on this. Taking a lot more care with curves and colour. The stars are more uniformly illuminated across the cluster now. Much more happy with this result. Thanks for the input everyone. I appreciate it. We can't improve without it.

The repro should be on the right.

[Chris.B (Christopher)]

wow. I'm still impressed.

[RB (Andrew)]

That looks great to me.
Well balance contrast and sharpness jjj.

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Excellent!

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Nice one JJJ!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Thanks for looking.

[IanP]

Have you tried: PixInsight?
I think it would allow you to make the core more "clear" ...

Something like this:
http://i.imgur.com/YfLtb.jpg

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I'm a CS3 girl Ian.
The seeing wasn't very good at Astrofest this year, and the target was fairly low when I was shooting. I'll give it a go next season.

[IanP]

I applied the HDRTransform to your low-resolution image.
Maybe if I had higher-resolution one the result could have been better???
CS3 does not allow you to do these things ...

[DJT (David)]

Hi JJJ
Great Centauri. Not sure if it needs any HDR to be honest but I did once get told off for lacking colour in this when I posted here previously so wondering if you can squeeze some out? Good to see ISO 400 with a Canon though!

[RobF (Rob)]

Jeanette, this is a nice shot.
I humbly suggest it would be even better if you pulled the red curve down a smidge and boosted the overall saturation.
(when I tried this quickly you appear to have clearly captured some of the classic colour spread of orange and blue stars in this sucker).

Pardon me being picky - kick me in the shins next time!.....

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Oh, one posts images to get feedback. All advice accepted gratefully. LOL
I'll do a total repro soon. I might even add data from other sessions, see if I can go a bit deeper.

[RickS (Rick)]

Globs seem really difficult to do well, JJJ. Looks like a pretty good Omega to me but I'm sure the repro will be be better!

Cheers,
Rick.

[irwjager (Ivo)]

Cool! Honestly, I like my globs 'au naturel' as well as JJJ is aptly demonstrating here.

PixInsight's HDR routines can often reduce living, breathing objects in to lifeless speckled pancakes. In this case, a globular cluster should, in fact convey that it is, well, globular! I.e. a spherical shape. Being a sphere, the thing has a core where luminosity (for a number of reasons - geometrical, optical and star type/lifecycle distribution) is greatest.

[Regulus (Trevor)]

This cluster, the Nebula at Eta Centauri and the Southern Cross region are my three favourite objects and this is a very nice photo of the cluster. Well done.

[alistairsam]

Nice one jjj,
do you think the focus might be a tad off? just looking at the corner stars. or maybe its because its a close crop??
regardless, its a good effort. what was wrong with the core? was it colour balance?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I was very rough with the first processing. Going too hard on the stretching and losing most of the star colour and causing the core stars to be over emphasised. I tried to compensate using saturation, colour balance etc. when what I should have done is erase the board and start over. Pure laziness on my part.
Images need to have their data teased out of them gently so you retain all the goodness.
Less is more.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I'm with Ivo on this one - I like the core brightness (not blown out). Looks like you've got some nice data to play with JJ.

[Martin Pugh]

Certainly like the repro better JJ - and a nice job overall.

The 550D obviously likes the colder temps.

cheers
Martin

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It certainly does Martin.