Tiny Small

Cheers Olly. I have to say, getting the right balance is a bit trickier than with LRGB. More rewarding though.

I replied when I was half asleep last night, so I apologise for missing this bit out: the individual channels look fine, but the Ha has physically bigger stars and i think that, combined with aggressive stretching is what is causing the halos. I think it's a sub length and processing issue. I'll need to take a look at some individual subs.

They're about the same price as the standard baader ones (£250 for three 1.25 inch filters Vs £270 for the baaders) and the o3 and S2 have a narrower range than the baader filters.

Thanks. I'm using Altair Astro filters. 7Nm Ha, 6.5 Nm OIII and SII.

Had a play with using a desaturation layer and some extra curves. Think it has improved it a bit.

When I used to shoot fashion and beauty, the skin was edited by non-destructive dodging and burning at pixel level, with a person's face taking a day or two sometimes, so the method you suggest isn't that labour intensive. I think I'll stay away from blurs as it's very easy to mess it up and very hard to get it right, but if there aren't any decent ways of globally controlling the halos then next time, the clone tool around individual stars might be a sensible option or perhaps just painting them out on a colour layer. One thing that I didn't realise was that a luminance layer can be used with narrowband. Seems obvious when you say it but it just didn't cross my mind. I'm assuming it's usually a Ha layer?

I stack in either DSS or Astroart (depends if Astroart gives me issues or not), then do the entirety of my processing in PS. I don't use actions though as, coming from a conventional photography background, I'm well versed in editing the conventional way.

So this is my first attempt at a three colour narrowband image and I ran into a few problems controlling halos around some of the stars. Quite sure that I'll figure it out in time but any advice would be welcome, as would advice on processing in the Hubble palette. Shot with the ZWO 178 mm-cool and Altair Astro 60 EDF at 200 gain and 65 offset. Integration: Ha; 72 x 300s OIII; 59 x 300s SII; 27 x 600s Total integration time just under 15.5 hours.

Whilst a concreted in pier and observatory are the ideal way to go, you would be surprised with what you can achieve just using simple and none-permanent solutions. I have my scopes mounted on an NEQ 6 pier that stands on some flat paving slabs dug into the grass. Polar alignment needs adjusting once a year or so and I have no issues with tracking and guiding. The scopes stay outside all year and are covered by a plastic garden storage container on wheels. This has a slot cut in the bottom and gets wheeled on and off when I want to use the scopes. I can go from everything being put away to my first slew in about 90 seconds. To combat moisture in the little hut, I have two large desiccant tubs that get swapped a couple of times a year, and the scopes are covered in the hut by a bed sheet and a small tarp that are just thrown over them. This stops dew forming on the equipment. Certainly not hi-tech or ideal, but it works.

M81 from the other night in Didcot. I'm enjoying using the 130 when I have time but I'm still struggling to get th autofocus working right. Might need to invest in a wider field of view camera too. 0.85 arc sec/pixel is really pushing it sometimes.

A very informative review. I was debating whether or not to give this a go for when it's cloudy here. I eventually decided not to due to the expense of long imaging runs but I know a few people who use it and love it. It's good to hear that the support structure is there too.

Collimation looks good. How many subs did you take and is that fuzzy bit exactly the same on all the subs? Could be a cloud.

The clouds rolled in and stopped imaging again but I got a couple of hours Ha on the Crescent. 34 x 300s with a few darks applied. It needs MUCH more data before I move on to O3 and S2, but here it is, a work in progress: