M42, first attempt at layer mask

[Atacamallama]

this is my first attempt at a layer mask. The core is 35 x 60 sec frames, the rest18 x 600 secs.

Altair 102mm f7 refractor + Atik 314L colour CCD, operated remotely in Nerpio.

[Daniel-K]

I LIKE IT THE DARK DUST LOOKS VERY NICE

[ollypenrice]

Honest opinion? 'Very nearly but not quite,' though the two sets of data themselves are superb. I think 60 seconds is too long for the Trapezium in broadband. I used 11 secs, 50 and 10 minutes, though at a faster F ratio. I think you could get closer in to the four main stars.

There is also a band around the region of the shorter subs where it mates with the longer ones. In this band the colour is faded out somewhat. This is a tricky process to get right but I bet you can get this image even better. Did you use this kind of method? http://www.astropix....GIT/LAYMASK.HTM If so, don't forget that while your layers are still separate you can adjust thier curves, colour balance and saturation.

It's a good result but you can tweak it further, I'm certain. Scope and camera are working well, mount also. There are some truly exquisite details in the gas.

Olly

[Mark72]

Nice details and dust around the nebula looks great,

A bit of work just like Olly suggested

Mark

[Atacamallama]

Thanks Olly, I'll take that, not quite the cigar.... but I'm happy as a first attempt. I used a Utube vid, by David Rankin, I think the name is. I realised that 60 secs was too much for the core. I'll look into some more tweaking as you suggest as well...

[ollypenrice]

Thanks Olly, I'll take that, not quite the cigar.... but I'm happy as a first attempt. I used a Utube vid, by David Rankin, I think the name is. I realised that 60 secs was too much for the core. I'll look into some more tweaking as you suggest as well...

I'd never want to encourage smoking! It's hard to judge, but I suspect your short layer needs a bit more of a stretch before blending. Don't forget that you also have the possibility of doing an ultra short stretch of the short data you have and blending that in as a layer. Is the Trapezium really blown even in the linear image? I quite often combine two streches of the same data.

Olly