M11 (Wild Duck) and MW background.

[ollypenrice]

Last night started with poor skies and meant that the main project on the double Tak rig took a while to get into motion, which left little time to get the TEC14O/Avalon/Atik11000 into gear. However, it turned out to be a great night and we went for a quickie in the TEC. The Wild Duck Cluster with NGC6704 in the frame and part of B111 showing. It would be nice to mosaic in more of B111, the dark nebula on the right, which is really north.

This was never meant to be a show stopper but I was delighted by the colour contrast between the Wild Duck's young blue stars and the redness of the central Milky Way around it. VIsually the Wild Duck is fantastic in the big Dob and 13 Ethos. A photograph cannot match the pin sharp resolution of the cluster, but then again the photo brings out the striking colour contrast and faint background activity in the area. Why not enjoy both?

This was taken with guests from FInland. LRGB, 5x10 minutes per channel.

Hey up mi' duck...

[JamesF]

One of my favourites, and with lovely colours

James

[Tinker1947]

very nicely done, i bet there are some planet earth types going round some of them stars,,,,,

[Paul73]

Very nice. One of my favourite DSOs.

But why is it called the Wild Duck cluster?

Paul

[ollypenrice]

Very nice. One of my favourite DSOs.

But why is it called the Wild Duck cluster?

Paul

Very good question. It might just about resemble a duck struck that instant by the contents of a 12 bore cartridge but, other than that, I haven't a clue!

Olly

[chiltonstar]

Very good question. It might just about resemble a duck struck that instant by the contents of a 12 bore cartridge but, other than that, I haven't a clue!

Olly

Superb image!

"Wild duck" came from Admiral Smyth because of the V or fan shape when viewed with small apertures, so it is said. Certainly looks a bit like a fan through my old 4" f13 refractor.

Chris

[astrovirus]

A very nice and colorfull image indeed, Olly. Adding some more of the dark nebula would surely favor me.

[MattJenko]

Pardon the question, but how much post processing is required for an image of this quality? I am just starting out with imaging and actually enjoy the processing aspect, although its extremely haphazard and almost random at present. When you know what you are doing, how much processing goes into something as nice looking as this?

[swag72]

Great star colour Olly and a joy to look at.

@Matt - While I can not speak for Olly, I can certainly spend many hours (perhaps up to 10) on processing one image. I certainly know that Olly doesn't scrimp on processing time

[MattJenko]

Thanks Sara. I won't hijack this thread any more, as it does not deserve to go off on a tangent, so won't respond again - I'll ask my further questions on a separate one...

[ollypenrice]

Thanks Sara. I won't hijack this thread any more, as it does not deserve to go off on a tangent, so won't respond again - I'll ask my further questions on a separate one...

No hijack to my mind. This was quite an easy one being LRGB with nothing terribly faint to pull out either. I probably spent a morning on it. Say four hours. I did the processing as a real-time demo for guests so I didn't spend too long finessing because it gets a bit incoherent when you do that.

On something difficult (ie faint and involving the blending of narrowband data) I might easily spend two or three working days but the improvement over what might take five hours is not huge. SInce I do this a great deal I'm quite fast by now but you also have to factor in the days spent learning or inventing new techniques.

I love processing an image, though.

Olly