NGC 2024 and Horsehead

[Woody]

Hello all

This is one of my images taken last night 2 April.

10x60sec,10x90sec,10x120sec,8x180sec and 10x120sec darks

Unguided

Am I right in thimking that those "smudges" are dust bunnies and therefore I needed to take some flats?

I also had trouble in getting rid of the overall white wash out look on the image, is this in part from a bright moon last night or I just need to work on my processing skills.

Thanks for looking and all comments and advice are most appreciated.

Jeremy

[Spikey]

Yes they are dust bunnies by the look of it and flats should get rid of them.

The moon never helps and the wash is probably gradient caused by it.

I'll spend 5 mins seeing if I can get rid of it for you.

[Spikey]

Used gradient xterminator plus a quick tweak to saturation and colour balance to try and kill of more gradient.

Quick curves and levels and then a little bit of noise reduction.

Not massively succesful with a jpeg but you get the general idea.

[Woody]

Hello Spikey, thanks very much for looking at that and having a play.

I shall have a look at Gradient Xterminator and fiddle a bit more in CS5

Thanks again

Jeremy

[Catanonia]

nice image mate and looking at the other image you posted, the dust bunnies are in the same place on both. Flats would sort this out.

[Quatermass]

Good start on this one flip the image around and get rid of those dust bunnys by using flats next time. You could use the clone stamp tool to tidy them up. Have a look through my series of tutorials on Photoshop

Using the Unsharp and High pass filters - YouTube

I have tried to cover pretty much most of the methods you need to process with. Use hide all layer masks and apply colour correction with them will pull out more from this image. And this tutorial really helps clean up background.

Background Repair With PhotoShop

[Anweniel]

Great shot Woody, should have realised you were in Aus since the geegee was upside down , just teasing.

Good luck with the dust bunnies, maybe you can use a blower to get rid of a few than rely solely on the flats as looks like you have a few.

[Woody]

Thanks again Quatermass for your advice and the links, I will look at them for sure.

Anweniel - I did try the blower (very carefully) but to no avail. I need to get it done professionally or maybe have a go myself with the right equipment. I did think about flipping the image to show the horse the right way up (even for Oz!!!) but I also thought that maybe the image should be presented the way that it sits in the sky? According to Stellarium my image still isn't quite right and needs to be rotated a few degress clockwise.

Or am I just being a bit pedantic about it!

Cheers

Jeremy

[Quatermass]

Does it really sit that way in australia?

[Woody]

This is how it appears in stellarium

Now whether stellarium is right I don't know. I guess it all depends on what part of the sky it is in, time of year etc.

[Quatermass]

Now that is something I didnt imagine it being that way round but I guess it would be in your part of the world. Here in the uk its the other way up.

[Gina]

Great image Must have a go at that

[Spikey]

From a Northern hemisphere perspective Orion is inverted in the Southern hemisphere.

In other words coming from the UK to us it would look upside down in Aus.

[Quatermass]

That would look strange to see it the other way up in my telescope but I bet you have some great skys in Aus.

[Woody]

That would look strange to see it the other way up in my telescope but I bet you have some great skys in Aus.

Where I am it is not too bad (compared to London where i have lived for the last 11 years).

I get some glow in the sky from Brisbane and a little from Surfers but can't complain:)

[Quatermass]

Just googled gold coast it looks a pretty cool place to live sun surf and sand city compare that to halesworth in Suffolk mind you we do have walberswick beach that is pretty nice in the summer, no sharks any way.

[Woody]

My in-laws are all in Suffolk (Onehouse) so I used to go up there quite often and take the scopes with me to take advantage of the dark countryside skies. A very nice part of the world and I actually miss it!

Cheers

Jeremy

[Quatermass]

Small world hey but I wouldnt want to paint it

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