M27 Dumbell Nebula RGB and RHa+HaGOIII+OIIIB

[x6gas]

Hi all,

My first attempt at M27 and my second proper go at RGB imaging. Atik 383L+, Baader 2" filters, TS90 APO, CG-5 mount guided with IMG0H and PHD.

Exposures

R = 5 x 480s

G = 5 x 480s

B = 3 x 600s

Something wrong with my darks and so these were all stacked in AA5 with no callibration and then combined in PhotoPlus 10. Didn't spend long trying to tweak this one. The background looks increadibly noisy and so will benefit from more exposures but at the same time the star field seems so rich that I think some of what looks like noise is in fact star!

This one is the same kit but adding in a single 900s Ha exposure and 4 x 900s OIII and mapping R=R+Ha, G=Ha+G+OIII, and B=OIII+B. I went to the trouble of making a star and starless layer with this one to try to control the noise...

They both need more data but I was out of the country for the good weather so this is what I've grabbed between the clouds on dodgy nights!

As usual, any processing tips very welcome (still learning here...)

Thanks for looking!

[Gina]

The RGB one looks very nice

[x6gas]

The RGB one looks very nice

Thanks Gina. I do like M27 but found it surprisingly difficult to process and the individual mono channels look way better than the combined as far as noise goes... I need to decide whether to continue and get more data with this set-up or do what I was originally planning to do and use this to have a go at DSO imaging with my HD11...

Thanks again!

[asteele3]

M57 is fantastic, I got an image of this one last night and I can't be asked with faffing around for an hour getting one image of something so I only did a 1 minute exposure and left it at that, see attached! Still pleased with it though. However your photo has so much detail and I agree with you that the noise is probably just stars!