ollypenrice

I had an F5 'Pearl RIver' Genesis and, if I could have any scope back again, it would be that one. Like Stu, it was the super-wide views that I liked and which remain extremely difficult - in my case impossible - to emulate. It's also an interesting scope to own because it is the 'Steve O'Meara' scope from his book on the Messier objects. And then there's the build quality... Olly

I didn't do any masked stretching this time. Instead, I did a series of stretches with the dark regions pinned so that I only stretched above them. I did give the starless a little LHE in Pixinsight as well. No filters. There's quite a lot of star colour when you look at the full. The problem is that, in holding them down so insistently, I left them with not much size in which to show their colour. I couldn't find a way around this choice between size and colour. The golden cluster you mention was a particular case in point so, not wanting to lose it altogether, I reapplied its stars over the small ones at a slightly harder stretch and with extra saturation so, relative to the rest, they are actually over-sized. Too much star reduction, maybe? Olly

Another one with Paul Kummer. Paul drove the scope (based here) robotically from the UK and also did the pre-processing. Post processing is mine. 2 panels, 3 hrs per panel, RASA 8/ASI2600MC Pro/Avalon Linear. Paul says the framing was good luck but the symmetrical wedge of Ha emission above IC443 447 works nicely to my eye. Big one here: https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Emission-Nebulae/i-fMwW3nr/A Olly

I don't see it... Olly

The colours in the nebulosity are beautiful. The star colour, also, is excellent though it might be possible to control Gamma Cass a bit more. Olly

That is mighty! In particular, I don't think I've ever seen such an interesting Iris. As well as the elusive pinks, you have some rarely seen shafts of brown dustiness close to the core. This region is an absolute 'must' for the Croman tools. They change everything. Olly

That's exceptionally fine! Gloriously deep background and top class colour. Olly

Making one image 'fit' another is the main purpose of Registar. You can use it to make mosaics, to combine data from different scopes, to get a perfect colour channel alignment, and so on. I may have a widefield from a short FL rig which contains a feature of interest which I also have at higher resolution n a long FL instrument. Registar will in 1 click, align and resize the high res image to to the widefield and, in a second click 'crop and pad' it so it will sit on the widefield in just the right place. It will also combine them but that really needs to be done with a little craftsmanship in Photoshop to get a natural blend. To align your NB data to your RGB in Registar you just pen both and ask it to register Ha (say) to OSC and then 'crop and pad' and that's it. You can go into whatever processing software you use to blend Ha into RGB and the Ha will be a perfect fit. At one time only Registar could do this. I think other programs can now do it and, for mosaics, APP is better. Olly

Regarding alignment, FLO do a decent alignemnt device. I used a Cassady T-Gad which, even second hand, cost a fortune. It is a beast of a gadget, though. Olly

I also did a lot of this at one time. I used Registar to resize and align one data set to the other, essentially a 2 click operation. What I don't think would work would be Luminance +OSC(RGB). I think the luminance would wash out the OSC colour very easily. However, adding NB to OSC works perfectly. I feel that the ideal stretch on NB data for combining with colour is not the same as the ideal stretch for a standalone NB image. For combining with colour I prefer harder contrasts from a much more aggressive stretch. This will be toned down once the NB is blended with the appropriate colour channel. I prepare all the images first, therefore - the OSC and each NB separately. Olly

I'd consider the MN190 as well as a Newt. Because I don't like endless fiddling with optics I would second Wim's advice in favour of F5 for a Newt. The Quattro can be be made to work but it won't necessarily be easy. Olly

That's always the tricky axis in AP... Olly

Wonderfully ethereal planetary. Olly

Moderators, JeremyS does not exist. He is a robot named ジェレミイ (高橋) which is only ever printed in this specific colour of hospital green. I have this on the infallible authority of Google Translate and it means Jeremy Takahashi. lly

I think the fine detail in this is tremendous. Simple as that. Great colour and contrast, too. I know you don't image from a dark site, Rodd, so I don't know what's possible for you in the background sky and faint nebulosity. Might there be any way to let the black point up a bit? I really don't know. But the bright stuff is great. Olly

I like these images and think your judgement on noise reduction was good. It has to be a compromise between fine detail and smoothness but I think I'd have called the balance pretty much where you did. Olly

Wide field but with lots of resolution. Personally, I'd let the black point up a bit. That's a very dark sky and some faint stuff may well be clipped. Olly

First impression: in the first one, too much green and in the second too little (turning things magenta.) The reduced stars look great. Olly

Superb. Let me say that twice. There's an elongation in your stars (and presumably in the galaxy as well) which is, in my view, a trivial distraction but which you might want to address. Guiding? Optics? Tilt? Fixable, I'm sure. Olly

Nice to see you back! I don't think your green channel is out at all. Olly

That's nice and new - to me, at least! Olly

Like all the living creatures before us, as is clearly evidenced by their absence... lly

A bit of blue and green can be marvellous, as in Sylvia Plath's poem Daddy. '... the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue...' While some aesthetic responses will certainly be learned, others must be intrinsic to the stimulii themselves. The musical scale saw the first discovery of a mathematical order (as opposed to a geometric one) in external world phenomena. There there is the colour wheel with its complementary colours, metrics in poetry and so on. Olly

The Wiki article offers a good overview of the parameters which need to be as they are for life to form. Where it is less successful is in distinguishing between 'being as they are' and 'being fine tuned to be as they are.' There is an enormous difference between the two, that difference being at the origin of this thread. The key question for me is, 'Is it valid to be surprised that they are as they are?' Would we not be a sight more surprised if we found that the physical parameters gave clear proof that we do not exist?' As ever, the structure of language pushes our thinking in an anthropomorphic direction. Verbs have subjects. 'To fine tune' must have a finer tuner of some kind. When we can't identify one we sense a void and want to fill it. Perhaps we shouldn't? Olly

I'm lathered up and about to use Occam's razor. We have sensory experiences of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. In all of these, there are things we find harmonious and things we find incompatible. This sound does not belong with that sound in music. This colour does not go with that in painting. This taste and that taste need to be at opposite ends of the meal. And so on and on. There is very high (though not perfect) agreement on these relationships. Now we are asked to believe that this agreement on harmony is sustained even though the primary experience of each colour, taste, etc is entirely variable from person to person. My razor says, 'No.' This image would not work unless we had a high degree of concordance in our perception. It does not offer proof of common experience but it fits into my argument above. As for the subconscious - I do not regard its existence as proven. (Another matter.) Olly