First Light (test) of WF Tripple Imager on Cygnus Loop in RGB

[Gina]

Although this was only really a test I thought I'd post the resulting image here. This is the first time I have tried my newly constructed widefield tripple imaging rig on the stars. This was principally to check that I could obtain focus at infinity and the check the framing alignment. More details are in my thread in the "DIY Astronomer" forum. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/189369-widefield-triple-imaging-rig/page__st__60__gopid__2001091#entry2001091

Optics consist of 135mm f2.8 lens set to f4 with Atik 460EX mono CCD camera plus 2 x 105mm f2.8 lenses set to f4 with 314L+ mono CCD cameras. This is about 50 minutes of data in subs of 60 secs in RGB with Baader CCD filters. Subs were green binned 3x3 with 460EX, red and blue binned 2x2 with 314L+. This gave an effective pixel size the same for both types of camera. I will be trying NB later.

I had intended to image one of the larger galaxies but there were clouds about last night and I had to find a clear area of sky. Hence I decided to try the Cygnus Loop (a good match for this frame size too).

Each colour stacked in DSS, stretched in Ps and aligned with RegisStar. Then the mono RGB images were combined and further processed in Ps. Finally the image was cropped to remove the margins and saved in PNG for upload.

[dazza1639]

Great start looks like your new rig is very promising

Darren

[Gina]

Thank you Darren

[astro mick]

Wow.There,s an arwful lot going on in this image Gina.Do you think you can pull out all the tantalizing Data thats lurking in there.

I,ve never seen so many stars in one image.

I,m sure you will work on this.

[peter shah]

nice project

[Gina]

Thank you Peter

Wow.There,s an arwful lot going on in this image Gina.Do you think you can pull out all the tantalizing Data thats lurking in there.

I,ve never seen so many stars in one image.

I,m sure you will work on this.

Well, considering this was just a test under less than ideal conditions, I'm quite surprised how much data there is in there Normally I wouldn't have dreamed of imaging the Cygnus Loop in RGB except as an addition to improve the stars.

On your suggestion I have had another go at this and applied several of Noel's Actions p;us other tweaking in Ps - this is the result :-