Chunk of the California Nebula(narrowband,false colour)

[SlipperySquid]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I posted image and nearly lost my faith in imaging before Christmas (wanted to sell up as I didn't have the time) but I decided to keep the gear and just image when I could instead of trying to get out every time there was a clear night.

Anyway I was plagued by tracking problems (still don't know what is causing as they are very erratic and may give the mount a strip down and fettle!) and I was losing lots of subs due to poor tracking but managed to get this image.

Scope WO megrez 72

CCD Atik 16hr

Heq5

Ha 30x900 secs= 7.5 hours

SII 18x900 secs=4.5hours

OIII 10x900 secs= 2.5 hours (there was nothing in the OIII channel so I gave up )

Ha layer was re-used for luminance to sort out some colour noise and smooth out the image without sacrificing detail.

Captured and stacked in Maxim DL processed mainly in CS4 with star reduction carried out in Pixinsight.

Was a pig to get the colour to something that I liked and thought I would have captured more faint wispy stuff on the edges of the nebula but overall I'm happy with the finished image.

Hope you enjoy it and any comments good or bad taken on-board.

Also attached the guiding graph from the last nights run which is how it should be

Clear skies all

Matt.

[Ant]

If thats your graph and YOUR plagued by tracking problems... I'm giving up

I would kill for a graph that looked like that!!!

Nice image as well Matt. I found this link very good in processing false colour images >>http://bf-astro.com/hubbleP.htm<<

Cheers

Ant

[SlipperySquid]

That was a good run Ant the previous nights where terrible!! I will have to strip everything down and find the root cause of it. May be something as simple as getting better balance in the scope as it's fitted with the shoe type attachment so I cant get good balance and 90mm rings are to big for it. I have a dovetail that I'm going to mod and attach to the shoe so I can push the scope further forward!

I have used the site in the link before as well mate but with having less SII subs and there being a distinct lack of OIII in the image I had to tweak it a bit more than usual.

Thanks again mate!

Matt.

[MikeWilson]

Matt, that is GORGEOUS. A brilliant result to be sure!

[Boren]

Your effort was well worth it - great result!

Cheers,

Harel

[Nova]

Thats stunning. You should certainly not give it up!!!

[lukebl]

That is TRULY gorgeous. I mean the PHD graph. But the nebula image is pretty good too!

[RikM]

Lovely image Matt. You have got this narrow band stuff nailed. Good to see you posting again.

[SlipperySquid]

Thanks again all!

Really appreciate you all taking the time to have a look

I wish all my recent guiding graphs where like that Luke, do you think that it could make POW

Matt.