ollypenrice

A lot of the noise is green and would be helped by SCNR green. Once I've got the background up to the level I want it (with the black point brought in to the start of the data line) I don't stretch it (the background) any more. What would be the point? I'd be dragging it above the nose floor. Instead I continue to stretch in Curves (now available in PI, I think?) with the background level, and below, held by fixing points. I'll also continue to stretch through a mask made from the image itself, but with the contrasts exaggerated. Essentially, I don't want to stretch the fainter stuff by any more than I have to. Stretching it and bringing in the black point, repeatedly, as seen on many tutorials, strikes me as being a way of boosting noise. Olly

When using mono, I'd shoot blue and luminance at higher elevations. Red and, under pressure, green would get the low elevations. With OSC I just get on with it and fix it in post processing as best I can. Olly

That's a very profound comparison. Nobody contemplating urban planning would, had this outcome been forseeen, have sanctioned it as an objective. But it never was an objective - and there's the rub. Olly

I can't see any point in trying to turn a photo into a sketch, or vice-versa. I think the point is to refine your observational and sketching skills in the same way that visual observers and astrophotographers refine theirs. Drawing skills can be taught, too. Classes in drawing from a good teacher might be worthwhile. Olly

This will not end well. Olly

Buy from FLO. If you have a problem, they will be 100% honorable. Don't screw up your experience for a saving which will be far less than you think by the time you have the product in your hand. Olly

They're available... lly

Yes BXT on three different sub lengths blended using layer masks in Photoshop. I know. Maybe what's deceiving is that it's not diffraction limited as an 8 inch scope, but a 400mm FL scope doesn't usually have a 200mm aperture. That still gives it room to out resolve a smaller 3.5 inch diffraction limited scope of 400mm FL. I think the RASA 11 would probably resolve at the limit if the seeing, here. Olly

Bit of a cheat, really, because it's just another M42 unless I crop it like this: We just did this new M42 in the RASA to use as a contributer to a rather exciting project we have on the go with the Samyang 135, but I was pleasantly surprised, once again, by the rig's resolution. The image above is cropped from this: Olly and Paul Kummer.

An astonishing amount of detail in what is a small target. The Ha has added a lot, too. Olly

That's superbly detailed. Nice to see a DS image from an SCT for a change, too. It certainly works! Olly

Splendid. Invisible processing, too. Olly

Well, I would have an opinion on this! It was on my many cycle tours dotted around the world that I became interested in astronomy and then hatched the idea of moving to somewhere with a dark site. Superb skies can be had in lots of places, not all of them ridiculously remote. In SE France and southern Spain you can be five miles from a shop and have a really dark sky (reaching SQM22.) Being literally on a mountain top is not the best because you look down on all the LP in the region. It's best to be high but in a natural crater of some kind. This also reduces problems from the wind. In choosing a specific spot, the devil is in the detail. It took me a year to find a house which was not too remote but which didn't have the only street light in a ten kilometre radius right in front of it! I kid you not, I looked at plenty of those... As for portable gear, Samyang 135/OSC CMOS and one of the small tracking mounts. You can work in very short subs at F2 and undersampled, taking the pressure off the tracking. Widefields benefit most from a dark site where gradients will be kept to a minimum. Olly

I think any violet tinge will be coming from my processing, probably. I tend to hold down the green quite insistently and often have to tweak the blues in my stars as a consequence. I'll pay more attention to this now that you point it out. I hadn't really noticed it. There's certainly little chance that the super-fast elements in the RASA optical path will be fully apochromatic. Olly

This is a serious M51. I think the last one is the best but over-saturated in colour, for my taste. A dead easy fix if you agree. What's really nice to see is that you have the blue extension of the extended arm after it has passed the companion galaxy. I always see that as a good test. Isn't the image flipped horizontal? (I'm terrible at this!) lly

Imaged with Peter Woods and Paul Kummer. This is a crop from a Samyang 135 widefield to put our recent RASA image in a bit more context. The RASA data were added without the stars and then the Samyang stars alone were put back in. I've done a lot of composites like this in the past but this is the first time I've done it using only the widefield stars. This makes life much easier because the star count is always higher in the bigger optics. Olly

I like both. When I replace stars I find it advantageous to give them a slight Gaussian blur (about 0.5 in Photoshop money) to help them look less harsh. Also, I sometimes try applying them at a tad less than full opacity. Again, this helps settle them into the image. Olly

You're in for a treat... Olly

That's really good. Personally I'd ease down the saturation a bit, in red, at least. The stars are super, now. Olly

Are you using Blur Xterminator? It makes a big difference to resolution of fine detail. Olly

NIce - and they are 11 LY long. Makes you think... Olly

Only the RGGB filters of the Bayer matrix itself. This was a one shot colour camera, otherwise unfiltered. We have a very dark site. Olly

Imaged with Paul Kummer. I have never managed what I thought to be a respectable M78, till this one. 100x3 min subs in RASA 8 - ASI2600 OSC, driven remotely by Paul but located at my place. My post processing. This is a crop to exclude Barnard's Loop: The whole thing is like this: Olly

Pixinsight is not compulsory. Olly

The object is utterly vast, so a telescope shows only the tiniest parts at any one time. People do say they've seen parts of it but it gained its name only after photography recorded it. Nobody has ever seen 'Barnard's Loop' as a loop. Olly