My First DSO IMage

[dave_galera]

Earlier this year I had to cancel a vist to Olly Penrice's Les Granges, but finnalyy got there in November this year. I had 6 clear nights and using Olly's Tak FSQ85 on the EM200 mount I captured the data for M42 a tortal of 6.2 hours in LRGB. These where captured on my own laptop and the image processed when I got back home in AstroArt v5.

I know I some more work to do to reduce the the rather large stars at the right hand side, but this is my first ever atempt at a DSO image.

Thanks to Olly for mentoring me during the week and answering the barage of questions that followed over the next two weeks.

[SJJ]

That's some first image! Really nice Dave, loads of detail.

[ollypenrice]

You worked very hard, Dave, and it shows! I see four stars in the Trapezium... Not often you can say that.

Olly

[Penfold]

Well that's a damn fine advert for Olly's place, very nice indeed.

[Tim]

Well that is going to be hard to beat with your second image

Thanks for sharing this with us, just shows what can be accomplished when you have a seasoned hand at your side.

Well done

[Anweniel]

Mightly impressive! Olly has some very nice equipment available and judging by the pictures he shares here - knows his way round them very well!

Hope you enjoyed yourself not just with the capturing but with the processing too.

[dave_galera]

Thanks for all your comments, and yes Olly is a great teacher but a slave driver when it comes to stopping up ALL night when its -2 to get the data, lol.

BTW it took me just short of two weeks to put it all together battling with all the various software and processes, a very very steep learning curve.

[laser_jock99]

BTW it took me just short of two weeks to put it all together battling with all the various software and processes, a very very steep learning curve.

Yup- getting the raw data is only half the battle. Cracking first image though. Looks like a professional shot from 30 years ago!

[carastro]

Breathtaking first image. You had a real crash course.

Now you have to keep up the good work.

Carole

[rocketandroll]

Awesome! Shows you what a difference good advice and good equipment make on this VERY steep learning curve we're all on :-)

Can I ask... is there a seperate layer for the core of the nebula? There appears to be a strange optical effect I can't quite put my finger on where, from the pink ring of M42 inwards seems to be slightly 'wrong' and appears to have star-trails... looks like two layers very slightly miss-aligned or one layer that is slightly out of focus or which had bad guiding? Probably the former.

Dunno if that's just me but my eyes are telling me something looks wrong with the middle of the nebula? Only shows up because the rest of the image is so sharp and top notch! :-)

Ben

[dave_galera]

Hi Ben,

Ummmmmm, will have to have a look at that, looks like a mis-alignment somewhere.

The core is made up of a separate layer that is dropped into the RGB layer and masked off. The actual core layer was made up of lots and lots of bits and pieces from RGB's of different exposure, 300s, 30s and 5s, and I had to to create the various pieces from differing stretches, then each bit tweaked to get them all to match.

I cheated a bit for the Luminance layer of the core, I took the final assembled RGB core, changed it to greyscale, wacked up the contrast and then dropped that in the centre of the Luminance layer, again with a mask.

I not suprised you have spotted something it drove me to dispare doing it.

Thanks for the helpful comment I will have another go at it.

[DugDog]

Well done! In fact that's amazing for a first attempt at a DSO! Congrats!

[TofuBoy]

very nice result, good job

[ollypenrice]

Let's not forget what a beggar of an object this is to image. I wouldn't have recommended it for a first go but Dave knows his photography and was dead keen so off we went. Look at that dust! Yummy.

Olly

[rocketandroll]

I should hasten to add the comment about the nebula core wasn't meant as criticism or nit-picking.... it is a stunning image, incredibly well processed, most of us can only dream of capturing and bringing out all that outer dust :-)

It was only the fact the rest of the image was so good that meant the discrepency in the middle was even noticable :-)

As others have said, you've got a real job on your hands topping that with your second image!!! :-)

Ben

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Stunning image! Really good detail.

[Spikey]

An incredible image Dave and very well processed. I've just done exactly the same as you with the layer masks etc.. my results are quite a bit less impressive but I can fully understand the complexity and learning curve of the first attempt at the processing of the layers. I think Ben could be right about one of the sub masks being slightly out because I've just had exactly the same thing happen to me this morning. Whilst trying to add more data from a different capture, the trapezium mask was not aligned so the centre looked like it had a slight swimming effect. Due to a lack of my own skills I couldn't get mine to look right or align properly so I just binned off the extra mask and save that job for another cloudy evening. Might be worth having a play with selecting the different masks if you've got the motivation to do so.

The big questions is how are you going to top it What's the next target?

[dave_galera]

Thanks again for all the comments. Yes, what is next...Ummmm. Two problems spring to mind, firstly I will be using C8-SCT and won't have access to Olly's wonderful Baby-Q (but I am saving my pennies for one), and secondly Orion will always be hard to top

Ben.......no apology necessary, it is only by getting constructive criticism can one expect to get any better, thanks for the welcome comment. The problem was that when I constructed the core layer it was mis-aligned by 2 px, also I used a blend mode of Multiply which I think was a bit aggressive and was swamping the the image below it, so have changed this to a blend mode of Darken and its much better. Also, somewhere along the line the core section got a bit soft, don't know how.

And Spikey, fortunately I have a good string to my bow in that I have been using Photoshop commercially since 1997, started with version 3.2, the first version that ran on Windoooooze!!

Below is a reprocessed version.............better?

[dave_galera]

[ollypenrice]

Much much better. Something was misaligned in version one, I presume.

Are you going to try a version with the Ha data?

Olly

[rocketandroll]

Now THAT is stunning!!! :-)

It's now looking like a trully world-class image!!!

And yeah... a Tak is probably on most people's wish lists... they are lovely :-)

Ben

[dave_galera]

Olly, thanks for that lol

I had already done one, here it is in HaRGB but didn't post it as you baby-sat the Ha data capture. Not sure about the Pink tinge though....should it be that Pink?

I also have an HaLRGB version that I set the blend mode for the L layer to Luminance, and the blemd mode for the Ha layer to Pin-Light but I don't think it is as good.

PS How do you Edit a reply on this Forum, can't find any Edit button!!

[Penfold]

The reprocessed one is excellent Dave, but I'm not sure about the Ha version, the running man looks like he's done a runner.

[rocketandroll]

Tell you what though.... the dust between M42 and the running man in that last version though... it looks like dark brooding storm clouds. Incredibly dramatic, never seen it looking like that before.

If you can keep that depth and atmosphere in the dust and the sharper detail and contrast in the nebula itself from the previous one... you'd have something uniquely cool.

I have a feeling you'll be playing with that data for a long time to come... I normally end up with between 10 and 20 versions of my images and always re-visit them a month or two later :-)

Ben

[Jessun]

Great images Dave! I read someone's general comment that doing AP is like owning a race horse that never wins (can't remember who wrote it here on SGL). I'd call that on the nose though! I am amazed by the star colours in your last edit!