steviemac500

I have the Baader 1.25” and have never experienced anything like this.

Thanks Dave.

Very pleased to end the year with my Rosette in this month’s Astronomy Now.

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all your comments. Steve

I remember taking my first NB shot of this in Ha when I first started out. I have been waiting a few years to try this in colour so here goes. I took 10 hours of 1200s exposures in each of Ha, S2 and O3. I did decon, MLT for noise reduction and then combined in PS and adjusted the colour balance too. I then added the Ha layer in again to get some detail back which I felt had been lost in the combination. Finally, I reduced the magenta stars, SCNR and colour saturation. I thought about extra sharpening but then decided that I liked the softer look. Hope you like it, c&cs welcomed as always. https://astrob.in/ag6u0y/0/

Thank you all!

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the positive comments.

This is my take on M42. It's an HDR image with a mixture of 300s and 10s in L and RGB. I also used 20mins and 10s in HA then used this to enhance the detail. Total of around 23 hours. Hope you like it! Hi res below. https://astrob.in/q734k5/0/

Thanks Olly.

I can never resist this target - one of the most beautiful in the sky. This my latest take on the Seven Sisters - total of 12 hrs, 6hrs of 300s in Lum and 2 each in RGB. Hi res link below. Hope you like it. https://astrob.in/ro1vs3/0/

Thanks for the comments. I'm aware of the issues with the star alignment but it's only in one section of the mosaic. It's a simple fix by increasing the RNSAC tolerance - I just didn't take enough care first time round! When I add the HA I'll take a bit more care. What I am really interested in is people's thoughts on the final colour as I said above, there seems to be a conflict about blue or brown.

Thank you!

Hi, I am interested as to people's thoughts on this. It's a 4 panel mosaic shot over several nights. Now, I know that most M31s are quite heavily blue but my data didn't have any in the galaxy but there is definitely blue in the image as its quite obvious in some of the stars. I read that in reality there are very few blue stars anyway and the more realistic colour is towards what I have here? I'm not 100% convinced but would be interested in what you think. Please ignore the pinched stars and the slight misalignment, I'm not quite finished and was going to add some HA in as well. Hi-res link below. https://astrob.in/wmpbtl/0/

Yep, I see it now, can't believe I missed it but in fairness you have to look pretty hard or be looking for something anyway to see that!! I never noticed it first time round and I don't think it detracts from the image if you're not looking too hard. At a loss to explain it though as APP normally is faultless. Don't ever hesitate to offer criticism though otherwise how do we learn and this will be something I will scrutinise more in the future, Still, AN have published it so I am going to remain happy with that!

Thanks for all the support. The latest edition of Astronomy Now has published the image. Well chuffed!!