Heart & Soul Nebulae

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Another image from my Cornwall trip at the beginning of September, about 40 minutes on the Heart & Soul with the 200mm L lens.

Not convinced I've got the processing right on this one, not sure if I should start again from scratch or whether it would benefit from another hour or more of data. What do people think please?

Here's a couple of wider shots from last year to show it in context against the Milky Way:

(135mm lens, star colours are much better here.)

(35mm lens.)

[ollypenrice]

For anything Ha-derived, have you tried going into Ps, Image, Adjustement, Selecitve Colour and, in the Reds, moving the top slider to the left to drop the cyans? It really 'pops' the Ha component of red.

Olly

[symesie04]

Looks good. I guess more time on target can never be a bad thing unless your Sara of course. Maybe applying some star reduction might help the nebula stand out..

For anything Ha-derived, have you tried going into Ps, Image, Adjustement, Selecitve Colour and, in the Reds, moving the top slider to the left to drop the cyans? It really 'pops' the Ha component of red.

Olly

Ooh any other juicy tips Olly?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

For anything Ha-derived, have you tried going into Ps, Image, Adjustement, Selecitve Colour and, in the Reds, moving the top slider to the left to drop the cyans? It really 'pops' the Ha component of red.

Olly

I think I did this thanks.

Maybe applying some star reduction might help the nebula stand out..

Yes, that could help, the starfield is the biggest weakness in the image I feel. I seem to have lost all star colour and the shapes aren't great. I don't understand why last year's image with the 135mm lens came out better, it was less data at a lower focal ratio. The stars shouldn't be over exposed in the new subs as I used shorter subs at ISO 800 to give plenty of headroom.

I'm a bit puzzled. Sometimes DSS outputs something I can easily work with but at other times I have to adjust it much more and that's when I struggle with colour balance.

[symesie04]

The stars in the last shot are lovely and tight and spot on focus hence the nice diffraction spikes. Of as you increase in focal length obviously the more precise the tracking needs to be even with shorter subs. So could it be an alignment thing?

[Guest]

Nice image. Thanks for sharing it here..