Elephant's Trunk in colour

[Guest]

We managed to get out last night and complete a colour run on the elephant's trunk to go with the h-a we grabbed on Thursday. This is a combination of 10 5 minute exposures in red and 8 each in blue and green, binned 2 x 2, with the Atik 460EX, through the Skywatcher ED80. After four hours of processing this afternoon, we have come down to two results, one partly done in Photoshop and one entirely in Pixinsight. Although we think that both still need work, we cannot decide between them, so opinions welcomed! Dave and Zoe

[Stargazer33]

WOW!

They are both very nice, but I think I like the left one more as some of the stars in the right had one look a bit pink. I'd be ecstatic with either though!

[Mr Bergman]

Nice! I think the colours look more attracting in the picture to the right. Can you post a bigger version? it´s just a thumbnail to look at on my computer!!

[ollypenrice]

Good stuff, but I would not have binned the colour for an HaRGB image. Binning colour is often OK in LRGB because the L will re-define the resolution of the binned colour. In HaRGB this will only happen if you use the Ha as luminance and I feel this is a mistake since it throws up a pinkish image with blue star haloes. The halo effects will be worse if you have binned the colour.

The one on the right looks to me like Ha applied as luminance. The one on the left could be PI's Ha application or Ha applied to red in Ps. I can't tell which! (You got me!) Probably wrong on both counts!!

What I would do is try getting some unbinned Lum and making an LRGB... and then look at how to apply the Ha to that.

These are good results but I keep away from binning whenever narrowband data is on the scene, mainly beause NB stars are tiny and binned stars are huge. The mis match is always a hassle.

Olly

[peter shah]

A super shot with nice colour