M45, lots of data...

[ollypenrice]

Lots and lots of older data has gone into this along with some new. The main luminance is recent and deep - 8.5hrs at F3.9. Then there is a plentiful supply of old colour data and some new from 2 nights ago.

All good fun...

Olly

[steppenwolf]

Nice! Excellent star colours, Olly and some really great dusty bits - bottom LH corner reminds me of the Ghost Nebula region.

[SlipperySquid]

Great image Olly, as per normal! Needs slightly cropping on the bottom right beautiful stars and masses of detail to boot!

Clear skies,

Matt.

[ollypenrice]

Great image Olly, as per normal! Needs slightly cropping on the bottom right beautiful stars and masses of detail to boot!

Clear skies,

Matt.

Oooops, you're right!

Olly

[antimorris]

Gorgeous Olly! Really shows how dusty this area really is!

[harry page]

Hi

Another very nice piece of work

Harry

[RobH]

C'est Magnifique

I know you've been working on M45 for a good while Olly....the results are well worth it.

Cheers

Rob

[Tom OD]

Beautiful Olly,

Strong star colour, lots of dust, and no flaring or star halos in the cluster. Great processing to hold all that together. For such a bright object, it really is a very tricky one to grab.

Tom.

[prokyon]

Hi Olly,

I know how difficult M45 is. You processed it excellently!

Cheers

Werner

[RikM]

That's a smashing image. I love how you have managed to get the main stars to appear so bright but without loosing the detail or colour.

What is it about CCD cameras that preserves the star colour despite using long subs, where DSLR's burn out the highlights? Higher full well depth or is it merely more careful / skilful processing?

[Beyond_Vision]

A really beautiful image Olly the star colours are wonderful, is this taken with the baby Tak?

Regards

Kevin

[twotter]

Beautiful! Now where is the 'we're not worthy' smiley???

[ollypenrice]

That's a smashing image. I love how you have managed to get the main stars to appear so bright but without loosing the detail or colour.

What is it about CCD cameras that preserves the star colour despite using long subs, where DSLR's burn out the highlights? Higher full well depth or is it merely more careful / skilful processing?

Everyone is very generous in their comments. Thanks. Regarding star processing, I picked up on something Rob said a good while back about using RGB rather than LRGB for the stars. I tend to process a fully stretched LRGB image first then put an RGB only layer underneath and hold back the stretch on that so the stars are smaller, dimmer and more colourful. Then I erase the top LRGB layer just for the bright stars. I've learned a thing or two from Tom as well over the years!

Kevin, yes, all in the Baby Q but at two focal lengths. This wasn't a deliberate decision but arose mainly from the framing that different guests have wanted to do.

Olly

[Magnum]

Amazingly deep image Olly really beautiful !

Lee

[Euan]

Amazing depth and star colour, great stuff!

[vdb]

Dust I didn't knew it even existed ... top!

Yves.