Low down Swan.

[ollypenrice]

The southern Milky Way is a glory but shooting low is tough going.

Since there is so much atmosphere to get through I have given up on Luminance as a way to get the image tight when tree skimming like this. Here is an RGB only image, just under 2 hours per channel, awaiting some Ha to give it a bit more attitude. If there is a way to get really crisp results when shooting low I don't know it! I got some odd noise effects, too, so a restack and re-calibrate would be a good idea.

Olly

[johnh]

Thats wonderful and star colour striking - swirls of gas are impressive, will have a go at this myself as its overhead. It does seem a pretty bright object. You ave caught the dust around the Swan's neck at the top of the main nebula very strongly.

John.

[rfdesigner]

Lovely image... and to my untrained eye truely excellent.

Just a thought on image quality at low altitudes.. is there any merit in using NIR pass filtering? The planet hunters seem to get good images with them in daylight (and presumably terrible seeing). Maybe soemthing that extends up to but not beyond Ha?

Derek

[AndyUK]

It's a beautiful image Olly, especially for one so low (there's no way I can get to this!). However, it's made all the better by the love star colour... (Oh, sorry - What did you use to get this...?)

[ollypenrice]

However, it's made all the better by the love star colour... (Oh, sorry - What did you use to get this...?)

Thanks Gents. Colour calibration came after DBE in Pixinsight. I used the whole image for white point calibration. Next I ran SCNR to de-green the image which had a great effect on the red stars.

FInally, when they lookled right, I used a partial application of Noel's Increase Star Colour action. Three of the large red stars I then worked on individually, just getting the colour to look right and reducing them somewhat.

Olly

[Telrad]

Splendid image Olly despite being so low, you've captured that wonderful pinkish colour contrast against that detailed starfield beautifully. Thanks for sharing!

[MartinB]

Great to see this target. Looking very nice and will really come to life with some Ha. I'm spending the summer on M16 and it is a real headache down so low.

[reddoss]

I am just wondering if an increase in altitude may be the best way to take images low down in the sky.

[ollypenrice]

I am just wondering if an increase in altitude may be the best way to take images low down in the sky.

Altitude always helps (we are at 3000 feet/900 metres) but I think the sky changes in quality pretty dramatically once you get above about 25 degrees. You see the difference in guiding accuracy, too.

Olly

[bigal1]

Great image Olly really liking this 1

[ashworthacca]

Lovely image Olly, star colours to die for.

[Uranium235]

Its the first good pic ive seen of this one, superb! I can understand how tough it is to go low. But I would have thought it would be much easier in your location (a lot more south than we are here in the UK).

Id love to have a go at M8 which is way lower than the Swan (-24 DEC), but unless the seeing is exceptional I dont stand a chance I had a little stab at it last year but it doesnt hang about for long, blink and its gone!

[Tim]

If it's low for you Olly, spare a thought for us Arctic circle dwellers

Very pretty, would love to have access to more of this region of the sky on a permanent basis, so much going on.