NGC281 in Hubble palette

[swag72]

This image started out with great promise, the Ha that I captured had bags of detail. Then I was beset with problems. The mount needed a strip down ..... twice .... in the DEC axis as it was playing up. Coincidentally the ST4 cable stopped working at the same time (Perhaps it wasn't the mount afterall!!!) leading me to change to ASCOM pulse guiding. Of course it involved tweaking of the settings! Scope on and off the mount resulted in a slight change in camera orientation, and so the SII data was badly framed. I decided to give up on more data due to the framing I was left with.

Here is NGC281 in a Hubble palette. It took ages to process as I find with NB imaging it's very easy to get to the 'eye bleeding' stage with the bright and over processed colours very quickly!! This is process #3, helped by a couple of images on the net that I liked and seemed more natural than my first, rather orange offering!!

Details

M: HEQ5

T: Pentax 75SDHF

C: Atik 314L+ and Baader filters

Ha - 7x1800s

OIII - 15x1800s

SII - 15x1800s

Integration time in total - 18.5 hrs, No calibration frames, as I find I can manage without them on the Pentax - The chip temperature ranged between 0-5 degrees, depending on the ambient. I could not get it any lower.

I would welcome your thoughts for changes / improvements.

NGC281 in Narrowband by swag72, on Flickr

[Quatermass]

Perhaps a little less intense on the colors but it still a stunning image really lovely

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2

[Jessun]

Lovely image! I know nothing about NB or Hubble Palette, but I've seen a good few and I like this one a lot!

[Gina]

Lovely image

[davew]

Hi Sara,

As part of the Balancing act I notice you've ditched an awful lot of Ha data for this. I know it's personal taste ( I'm sure you don't agree ) but I feel you're chasing too much O111 and you've lost a little S11 around the dusty area.

That said, I think your capture is top notch.

Dave.

PS. My head will never save my fingers ! But have you smoothed the O111 quite a bit ?

[swag72]

Thanks Gina.

@Dave - There's a couple of reasons I halved my Ha data here, firstly not to overpower the image and also to get a 1:2:2 ratio. Perhaps I would have been better using all 6 hours? How would that have impacted on the image do you think?

Regarding the SII, I found the data very tight on the histogram and had to stretch that far more than the other two, would more data have naturally widened the histogram?

You mention smoothing - I've not done any, honest.

[davew]

You mention smoothing - I've not done any, honest.

It must be my eyes. Ignore that then.

Don't change your imaging for me but I would love to have what you've thrown out ! Some go for this unnatural balancing and others don't. The Ha doesn't have to be stretched too far.

Re S11. More may help but it may not make a noticeable difference. Not for the hours involved anyway. JPM ( I'm sure you know who I mean ) tends to get rid of the stars and do stretches just in the area he's interested in. Another tactic ?

I just feel uneasy that you're chucking stuff out. Still, it's personal taste.

Dave

I've just had a look at your other posts, in other forums. This image is a hit

[swag72]

Dave I am pleased for any help I can get so take on board your comments. What did I throw out? Just 3 hours worth of Ha really. Each of the images in the Ha stack had an FHWM of less than 1.7, the OIII 1.9 and the SII 1.8 - I was quite pleased with this.

The Ha was hardly strecthed at all, while the SII was very much more so, to the point of breaking point I would suggest! In your original comment about the OIII and chasing it too much - Do you mean the blue channel and why do you think this?

I tried JPM's tone mapping process before and it was far too difficult for me - I couldn't put it all back together at the end!!

I hope on the next target to have enough decent subs (ie- No guiding issues, mount issues or camera movements) to just throw in a third more more SII certainly.

[davew]

Sounds a plan

PM sent.

Dave.

[farunj]

Wow!! That's a stunning image!!

[swag72]

Wow!! That's a stunning image!!

Thanks for looking