First globular cluster

[pixueto]

Dear all,

This my first try at a globular cluster. I went for the obvious choice: M13. That's 1hour 1 min with 1', 1'30'' and 3' subs. Also darks, flats and bias.

I would very much welcome any advice as I didn't know very well how to treat this target. A globular is a new type of beast for me and I'm not sure about ideal subs or how to process it. There is a lot of noise in the picture and I wonder if that's because 1h worth of subs is not long enough but on the other hand, I was concerned about overexposing the core.

For the first time, I did my flats pointing at the early morning sky and I managed to get rid of this horrible vignetting present in all my pictures so I'm quite happy with that.

Also, I noticed some people managed to get very nice colour from the old stars in the cluster. my picture is pretty much black and white. Would I be able to bring out the colour with longer or more subs?

Thanks for watching and for your help.

[Fenriz]

That's a great first, if I can't bring out star colours with the usual curves, levels etc I us the increase star colour in Noels Actions

[Gina]

Grear first image - well done

[spaceboy]

May benefit from a coma corrector but looks great to me.

[pel]

Great job.

[Quatermass]

You should be very pleased with that one it looks great and you can see the propeller in there as well. Glad that your guiding system is now working well for you after the ups and downs you had with it. Now all we need is a good run of clear nights so we can all get out there and do it again

[Spikey]

Hi Pix, if you are processing with Photoshop download and run a filter called Hasta La Vista Green (HLVG) against your image. It should remove some of the green cast and release a bit of colour

[alpal]

Looks good to me but what ISO did you use?

I find globulars come out better on lower ISOs e.g. ISO 400

but another set of say ISO 800 for the dimmer stars.

A coma corrector would help.

The pic is a little too green - that's just processing.

Have another go at processing it.

These globs are hard targets.

My first one was no where near as good as yours.

[kenmyers]

That looks cool.

[pixueto]

Looks good to me but what ISO did you use?

I find globulars come out better on lower ISOs e.g. ISO 400

but another set of say ISO 800 for the dimmer stars.

A coma corrector would help.

The pic is a little too green - that's just processing.

Have another go at processing it.

These globs are hard targets.

My first one was no where near as good as yours.

thanks guys. I used ISO800 1', 1'30'' and 3' subs. ISO 400? How long should the exposure be?

Thanks

[pixueto]

You should be very pleased with that one it looks great and you can see the propeller in there as well. Glad that your guiding system is now working well for you after the ups and downs you had with it. Now all we need is a good run of clear nights so we can all get out there and do it again

Thanks QM. We got clear skies last Saturday so I can't complaint as there is no getting up early on a Sunday for me!. It was a bit windy for my EQ5, though.

[pixueto]

Hi Pix, if you are processing with Photoshop download and run a filter called Hasta La Vista Green (HLVG) against your image. It should remove some of the green cast and release a bit of colour

Thank you very much Spikey. Are those filters free?

[pixueto]

Thank you very much Spikey. Are those filters free?

Never mind, found it. Thank you, what a difference did it make! Are there any other other plug-ins like this? That was brilliant; that's the same picture after being processed with HLVG. Thanks a lot.

[Spikey]

Really pleased it worked for you. Nicer colour in there now.

Gradient xterminator has a trial period but also a hefty price tag. Worth trying though.

You could cut down the reddish noise in your background by going to colour balance, selecting shadows and dropping the red slider back a touch.

[pixueto]

Really pleased it worked for you. Nicer colour in there now.

Gradient xterminator has a trial period but also a hefty price tag. Worth trying though.

You could cut down the reddish noise in your background by going to colour balance, selecting shadows and dropping the red slider back a touch.

Done. Thanks for tonight's lesson!

[CowFish]

I can only hope my first cluster comes out this good. I got an eq5 synscan a couple of weeks ago but it has been nothing but cloud since so not had a good night to try it all out yet.

[Pete Presland]

looks very nice and isn't that a little fuzzy in the left hand top corner?

[Spikey]

Done. Thanks for tonight's lesson!

You're welcome

You did the processing not me, and that's starting to look quite nice now, well done.