M27 Dumbell at 2.8m f/l

[x6gas]

Hi all,

This is my first attempt at guided DSO imaging with my HD11.

R 3 x 300s

G 3 x 300s

B 3 x 420s

Ha 2 x 420s

CGEM DX, Atik 383L, guided with IMG0H and PHD. Quick stack, stretch and colour align in AstroArt so I'll be able to get more out of it, I think.

Problems with the guiding on this one and I am getting star trailing on pretty much all of the subs. I clearly need to fine tune the PHD settings as the guide graph was distinctly alpine!

Still... it's a start...

[Mark72]

A good start!

May be you need to descrease subs exposure? How do you guide? With a finder?

Mark

[x6gas]

Thanks Mark. I probably could have gotten away with shorter exposures on this target, but eventually I'm gonna need to be up at 600 second or more subs on some things so need to get this nailed...

I guide with an OAG so I'm pretty sure I just need to tweak my PHD settings. I had the calibration step set too long for starters.

[Gina]

Great start

[steppenwolf]

This is a great start and a tweak in PS shows that there's plenty more to come from this data too - excellent!

[x6gas]

Thanks all for the encouragement.

The image in the original post was a very quick and dirty colour synthesis in AstroArt 5.

These two are colour combines in PhotoPlus.

The first using the combine Ha and R stack for the red channel and copying the blue and green images in to the relevant channel of the HaR image to produce the colour. I haven't done anything to clean the image up and I find this method less flexible and more difficult to get a good colour balance.

The second one is using seperate layers for each filter channel. More control, but I always get more noise using this method. I may try to creat a false Lum by stacking all of the subs and see if I can use that to improve the final result.

Hasn't changed the fact that the guiding is not enough, but I'm still practicing basic processing techniques!

[todd8137]

I like vthem all great work

Pat

[squeaky]

Lovely

While you're still working on your guiding, you can use PS to sort out those elongated stars...

[NickK]

Hehe squeaky - I was just doing the same with PI

The result is that it brings out more detail

A beautiful image.. now more exposures and drizzle

[squeaky]

Well yes, if your stars are "on the move" then so is the nebula - so this tends to sharpen it up. Tends to reduce any remaining background noise too.

One thing you can try (doesn't always work) is even if your stars are round - resize to 400% then do one pixel up and one right. Then resize back down again. It'll tend to vary for each image, as always, but going up using bicubic smoother, and coming down just on bicubic usually gives a good result. It's often only a tiny, almost invisible change, but it has benefits for later processing such as lifting curves.

[x6gas]

Good call Squeaky! many thanks for posting this link - looks like the orther video tutorials will be really useful too.

Love the bit towards the end: "It's cheating, really, but we're not going to worry about that!"

Really easy (and quick) to do and I think it is an improvement...

I spent an hour this afternoon tuning my mount pending a full on dismantle but hopefully I'll be in better shape next imaging session....

Thanks again !

[Chris]

Holy nebulae that last image is great!

[x6gas]

...and here's the other version with the same routine.

Shame the background sky looks so green in this one (actually I think it's too black in the other). Maybe have another play with the colour balance to see if I can get a happy medium...

[x6gas]

Holy nebulae that last image is great!

Thanks Starfox. Considering there isn't much data there and the guiding problems I was having at this focal length I'm really pleased. Squeaky's tip works a treat .

[squeaky]

Like magic innit?

[x6gas]

Like magic innit?

Yeah! Which makes you Harry Potter!

[squeaky]

...and here's the other version with the same routine.

Shame the background sky looks so green in this one (actually I think it's too black in the other). Maybe have another play with the colour balance to see if I can get a happy medium...

Easy peasy

Images >> Adjustments >> Colour Balance

Just ease the green back towards the magenta by 20 - 25 and Bob's yer uncle.

[x6gas]

Easy peasy

Images >> Adjustments >> Colour Balance

Just ease the green back towards the magenta by 20 - 25 and Bob's yer uncle.

Now we're getting somewhere!

[squeaky]

Yeah! Which makes you Harry Potter!

Nah... the process isn't mine - I just posted the link.

[squeaky]

Now we're getting somewhere!

A little tweak on curves, a gentle high pass and unsharp, followed by a gentle blur to ease graining...

[x6gas]

Wow! Nice work Squeaky and many, many thanks for the pointers.

As I say, I am still learning here, but I've tried out your tips in PhotoPlus X4 and the result is below. In my defense, the original didn't look nearly so green on my monitor as it does when I upload it to SGL - I'm gonna have to learn how to factor that in!

Thanks again, mate. I really wouldn't have believed that I was capable of getting the final result from the initial dat. I'm well chuffed with this one now!

[x6gas]

Final tweak... trying to balance the colour of the nebula with the background...

[Ewan]

X6gas wow makes my version look like I have obscure glass in my C8 :-)

Amazing what a bit of processing can do, anyone want to 'fix' my M31 centre core stack ?

[squeaky]

X6gas wow makes my version look like I have obscure glass in my C8 :-)

Amazing what a bit of processing can do, anyone want to 'fix' my M31 centre core stack ?

Point me at it and I'll be happy to play. It's raining here, gonna be cloudy and rainy tonight, and my scope's AZ electrics are fried so I've got nowt else to do.

[squeaky]

Wow! Nice work Squeaky and many, many thanks for the pointers.

As I say, I am still learning here, but I've tried out your tips in PhotoPlus X4 and the result is below. In my defense, the original didn't look nearly so green on my monitor as it does when I upload it to SGL - I'm gonna have to learn how to factor that in!

Thanks again, mate. I really wouldn't have believed that I was capable of getting the final result from the initial dat. I'm well chuffed with this one now!

You're welcome

Nice result.

There's probably much more that can be done but I'm still learning myself, so that's the best I can do, sorry.

EDIT: If you do the work on your original TIFF - then try saving as a PNG for posting you might find the image posted stays more true.