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Your images are exceptional - especially given your use of a DSLR rather than a dedicated astro camera. This one is exceptionally exceptional!

Thank you Martin. The forecast here is awful for the next couple of weeks so not sure when or if I'll be able to get more data on this target but I live in hope!

Thanks Richard. Many thanks Olly. The initial stretch I generally use (and used here) is one based on a hugely helpful example you shared on here many moons ago which controls the stars well. After that I was sampling the propeller and trying to bring out some contrast in the nebula with a few iterations of gentle selective stretching. I don't recall ever really having to do this before - at least not to this extent - but the nebula appeared very 'flat' in my data otherwise. Many thanks Goran. I'm sorry I seem to have missed the scope off of my kit list! It was the TS130 Super Apo (f/6.6; f/l 860mm).

Latest image using my new mount - posting the Ha as who knows when or if the weather will clear long enough for me to capture more data. I hope to do a wider field of this region in the future but for now here's a close up of the Propeller Nebula in Cygnus. I can see a running man in here... Took a bit of very careful stretching to get any kind of definition in the actual propeller and I am still not 100% happy. Still a bit noisy so could do with another couple of hours of data. Mount: CEM40; Guiding: Atik OAG, QHY 5L II, PHD2; Filter: Atik EFW2, Astrodon 5nm Ha; Camera: Atik 460ex Data: 20 x 600s, preprocessing in AstroArt. bit of NR in PI, stretched and sharpened in PS. Thanks for looking, Ian

Absolutely stunning Martin and an impressive demonstration of what can be achieved with a relatively modest amount of data (if ten hours can be called modest...!) Another inspirational image from you, thanks for posting.

The Baader filters are a good price, but value is harder to determine. As Adam says, OIII is not the filter to skimp on. I have the Astrodon 3nm bandpass which is eye wateringly expensive but I view it as the most important filter in my carousel so for me it is still good value.

Thanks all. Ah yes Carole you are indeed correct! It seems that some do refer to this as the Phantom of the Opera Nebula - didn't know that so thanks for the info.

I was imaging Sh2-173 in Cassiopeia the other evening. Don't really have enough data but just for fun I thought I'd post this as it's Halloween and if I squint I can sort of see a ghostly face in here. I've cheated somewhat: Sh2-173 is an Ha emission nebula but this is what I get when adding the monochrome Ha stack as a luminance layer. For the record: Kit: Mount: CEM40; Camera: Atik 460ex; Filters: Atik EFW2 with unmounted Astrodons (Ha 5nm); Guiding: Atik OAG, QHY 5II Data Ha: 14 x 900s; RGB: 12 x 180s of each channel Cheers, Ian

Wowsers! That's excellent. So sharp but not over-processed.

Very nice and lovely to see the Rosette in this generous framing - well worth the pain of doing two panes.

Beautiful. The focal length of that TS65 is perfect for this - nice to see a bit of space around the galaxy.

Spot on for me. Star colour looks better too. Excellent stuff.

Well it's personal preference: your image, your rules! Too light and the object won't 'pop' but it's a bit subjective...

Honestly I am not sure that more data would help that much. you've done a terrific job on the actual galaxy but if I am being hyper-critical the background is a tad too dark in my view. I try to keep mine above 23 (I think 23 is the magic number that @ollypenricesuggested to me and he's the boss as far as I'm concerned) in each channel and sometimes I keep it as high as 30, thought that's not everyone's taste... the sky isn't pitch black, after all!

I was disappointed with my bi-colour attempt at this. Probably my poor processing skills but IMO this also looks good in three filter narrowband using the CFHT palette if you fancy getting the SII as well. Gives reasonably natural star colour (but in truth there isn't much SII signal from the nebula IIRC). Lovely image though and terrific to capture the Soap Bubble. I wasn't looking for it when I imaged this target and the bottom of the frame runs right through it! Great work.

Hmmmm. I'm not that familiar with the UHC filter but it appears that it is really designed for emission nebulae whereas M45 is a reflection nebula. I think you'll be cutting out a lot of whispy blue haze in this target if (as I suspect) the filter is only passing the blues from the OIII wavelength. Anyway, I had a very similar issue with haloes on the same target way back when: You'll see speculation on what was causing the haloes in thread but it was definitely something to do with the Baader filters as the problem went away when I switched to Astrodons. That's not to say it's definitely the filters alone as there may have been some kind of interplay with something else in the imaging train. I don't recall ever having had a similar issue on any other target... but then I don't recall imaging anything else with such bright, blue stars. It might help if you could list out exactly what kit you were using... Cheers, Ian

This is stunning - very, very well done. Some think that this galaxy must be easy because of its angular size but M33 is a tough target to process and you've done very well. Kudos.

Blimey - I'd be proper annoyed at that. Absolutely outrageous!

Good stuff Alan. I gave up on this one when I tried it - as you say it's very faint and needs a LOT of data. I think that's why you don't see many images of it. More data will help for sure but I think you've done a great job with what you have so far. I don't mind leaving a bit of green in images but HLVG is worth getting to add to your tool kit. I hope you don't mind but I've taken the liberty of running your image through it - obviously results are better with the original data rather than a jpeg but it gives you an idea...

Excellent work and diligence capturing so much data - and you've made the most it with a fantastic process. Love the colours and the details.

Well, yeah, but let's not forget that what looks muddy brown in that image is actually glowing red!

Sure thing, though obviously these were taken on different nights under different conditions... FSQ85_Sh2-101_001_600_Ha.fit TS130_Sh2-101_001_600_Ha.fit

Thanks Chris. Yes I must admit it's a lovely scope - extremely well colour corrected, reasonably fast at f/6.6 and no vices; a Riccardi reducer gets you to 645mm f/l and f/5 so it's pretty versatile too. TS don't do this model anymore, sadly. The imaging scale with this set up is 1.09"/pixel and PHD2 was reporting an overall RMS error of ~0.4" for each session. No deconvolution or other star shaping done to this data but the images I've posted here are downscaled to be 1200px high (so downscaled by a factor of about 2) and then I reduced the resolution in the post further. PI reports FWHM of 2.667 and eccentricity of 0.601 on the Ha data so the eccentricity could be better; I think the focus was a bit off for some of the subs... Cheers, Ian

Thanks for the comment Adrian. I agree that you get much more depth from the OIII and SII signal in the nebula itself. I'm not very keen on the muddy brown in here though. I have some OIII data from the TS130 and may try to add some SII to do a full Hubble using that data. The version above is a real hash job to be honest. I created the original Hubble version using the FSQ85 data which obviously was a wider field of view and different pixel scale. That was processed in PI and, as you suggest, I assigned the narrowband data using ChannelCombination (and used the new narrowband PhotometricColorCalibration to get colour balance). Then I matched that data to the new Ha using Registar (though I actually did that on a first quick process of the Ha which is why there are some artefacts around the edge that I haven't cropped out). The Ha was then pasted over the colour data as a Luminance layer at full strength. It came out better than I expected so I will go back and do a proper job at this image scale with a full 6 filter process. Thanks again, Ian

I've been banging away at Sh2-101, the Tulip Nebula in Cygnus, for the last few clear nights shaking down my new CEM40 mount. Initially I imaged this with my Tak FSQ85 but I wanted to see how the mount handled my TS130 Super Apo. Focal length is still only 860mm and the whole rig is 12kg (26.5lbs) i.e. at 2/3rds of the rated (usually interpreted as for visual) payload capacity so this wasn't pushing the mount too hard but I didn't lose a sub to bad guiding over the three nights I captured this data. My processing skills are coming back slowly but it feels I've still got a long way to go... mostly processed in PixInsight, which I am still learning, with some tweakery in PS. On the HaRGB version I ended up adding the Ha as a luminance layer partly to increase contrast but partly to make the nebula pinker (didn't think I'd ever be doing that!) but the original deep red just didn't look right to me for this target... Kit Mount: CEM40; Camera: Atik 460ex; Filters: Atik EFW2 with unmounted Astrodons (Ha 5nm); Guiding: Atik OAG, QHY 5II Data Ha: 18 x 600s; RGB: 40 x 180s of each channel for a total integration time of 9 hours. No calibrations frames at all, by the way. The low noise of the Atik 460 means that I could get away with just using Cosmetic Correction in PI without darks, vignetting wasn't a problem (no field correction in this process) and my bias frames are over-correcting for reasons I haven't fathomed yet! Anyway, Ha, RGB, and HaRGB versions and just for fun an Ha/OIII/SII version with the Ha data from the TS130 used as luminance over the colour process from the FSQ85 data. Must admit that I like the RGB version as it shows off the lovely mix of blue and red stars. The nebula is pretty bright in Ha and the HaRGB version kinda washes out the star field... As usual comments and advice welcome. Thanks for looking and clear skies.