The Wall

[Martin-Devon]

I took this image last Saturday, almost perfect conditions, no wind, no moonlight and the tracking/guiding from the Mach-1 mount was just a dream - just one of those rare nights that are unfortunately too few. Captured 10 x 10min subs each of H-alpha, OIII & SII, calibrated and then processed under the normal Hubble palette routine.

I want to thank Matt (aka Slippery Squid) firstly for drawing my attention to this target with his excellent version posted on 13th Nov and secondly for encouraging me to eliminate noise reductions steps on my version - normally I do a few armfuls of noise reductions routinely, but as I'm learning, this is often at the cost of subtle yet real loss of intricate details. Luckily with the Atik460 subs the noise is already very low, and routine calibrations are enough as I'm finding, so no more or minimal-only noise reductions from me in the future!

Martin

[Stargazer Jack]

That is stunning!

[Gina]

Wonderful Yes it was a good night but we've made up for it since!!! And still we have the horizontal rain :(

[WaveSoarer]

Simply astounding. It's like a piece of art work.

[r3i]

Fantastic image.

[stellawolf]

Wow simply stunning well done

[scttshaffr]

That's amazing!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[chr1s]

what a beautiful image!

[Anweniel]

A very inspiring picture in its own right. Well done

[sologuitarist61]

Very dramatic!!

[Whirlwind]

Hi Martin

Absolutely stunning image - lovely. Glad to see the kit is working out nicely!

Ian

[andyo]

A truly stunning image

[Martin-Devon]

Thanks for all your comments - especially Ian (Whirlwind) since he helped me a lot getting to grips with the Mach-1 and taught me how to use Pempro, so many thanks Ian.

[badgers]

That's cracking, lovely and sharp with oodles of detail coming out.

What kind of narrowband combination did you do? Standard SII:Ha:OIII with no luminance layer ?

It's coming out quite a bit paler than the usual hubble palette (wall is usually yellow/green with red shadows), but I really like it.

Anton

[turbotim]

Awsome work!

[Steve 1962]

That's a stunning image Martin - the level of detail you've managed to achieve is jaw-dropping and I think the less saturated colour gives a very natural feel - just lovely.

[adamsp123]

A fantastic image

[Martin-Devon]

Hi Anton, in reply to your question - "yes" I used the standard Hubble steps so RGB = SII/HA/OIII. On this occasion though I did not run through the regular Photoshop process that you & others have found (http://bf-astro.com/hubbleP.htm) - instead I did the colour balance on the fly by using the Selective Colour tabs and tweaking until I got a starting colour to my liking, then worked it up from there. You are correct though in that the starting point is a fairly green/blue/gold palette and the initial steps are spent getting the green converted to blue tones which is easy. Then boosting the red under Curves & Selective Colour (the adjustments under Neutral actually have the biggest impact). It's important to keep watching the black-point in Levels though since this changes quite a bit during the colour tweaking. To be honest though The Wall (NGC7000) is packed with data & colours - it really doesn't take much to bring these out and to vary the colours to any shade you want - it's one of the excellent narrowband targets for Blue colours though - I'd encourage others to have a go at this target.

[badgers]

Thanks for sharing Martin, I must try this approach.

[Ewan]

Martin that is really a magnificent shot looks almost heavenly i wish i had the expertise & time to achieve such astounding results, i have got miles to go yet well done mate.