HOO image of Wizard Nebula NGC 7380

[Martin-Devon]

Managed to get 3 hours imaging in last night before the clouds rolled in yet again. Took 1.5 hours each of HA & OIII, all in 10 minute guided subs on the Ikharus 4" refractor with Atik 314L.

I like the Wizard Nebula, it's a good DSO target this time of year, just above Cassiopeia and has lots of HA signal in it. I'm still learning this imaging stuff, so any comments/tips on how to improve the processing of the image would be appreciated.

[PhoenixRising]

Stars look good and thats a well framed image, well done. Can I ask, did you add the diffraction spikes after using PS actions?

[ollypenrice]

It's a nice bright signal and well guided.

You ask for suggestios so I'd probably say, 1) the sky is ultra black and the nebula emerges instantly from it, so I wonder if you black clipped it? Try to leave a little bit of flat to the left of the main peak in the histogram. Rob explains this well; pic and description page

2) Maybe go easy on the noise reduction. You don't want to create the 'vaseline on the lens' look, as SteveL, I think, once called it.

3) Maybe a bit softer on saturation?

Olly

[fwm891]

Hi Martin - like you I managed to image 7380 last night and have been 'playing' with the data today. I tried to get mine in some form of Hubble palette but my OIII data was too weak really compared to the Ha & SII images - but good fun anyway - well done