M27 in Captured & Processed in Neb3 - QHY5L-II Ascom

[SnakeyJ]

Same old target, but these initially look pretty good, at least on the laptop screen:

M27 RGB:

M27 G-RGB:

The capture was done in Neb 3 using the qhy5l-ii ascom drivers @ 12 bit, 12% gain and 30 sec subs. I actually ran the dark frame subtraction and stacked in DSS as I find it easier to select the best 20 frames manually with their preview, but all other processing in Neb3 (normalise, align RGB frames, stack RGB, colour balance, tighten star edges, unsharp mask, median noise reduction and by way of experiement the GREYCstoration). Excuse the poor cropping GRGB frame.

Neb3 is very easy and quick/powerful to do the basic processing, though not sure I'm comfortable with stacking in this which feels a little clunky. Could still do with a final polish but not bad results for 45 minutes processing. Initially I thought the G-RGB was better, but on a second look the straight RGB gives sharper detail in the nebula core.

[Daniel-K]

there very good for the type of camera good stuff jake

[SnakeyJ]

Cheers Dan - I'll keep plugging away on this as the data is good enough to give me some practice on the guiding, capture and processing - hopefully when that 460EX arrives I'll have ironed out some of the bugs, though a long way to go yet

Looking again this morning on a better monitor the noise reduction (GREYCstoration) seems to have blurred out a lot of the detail - Quite a lot of options on this, many of which sound rather arcane, so will have to do a lot more experimentation and research on this and tread a little more gently!

[kirkster501]

I like them. Well done

[SnakeyJ]

Thanks Kirkster,

Here's a reprocess on a better display - sticking with the rgb for the time being and holding of the GreyCstoration which has me stumped at present!

[anthony]

Had a good look at these and all are good. The last s best in terms of sky background colour, brightness and contrast though (on my screen anyway) I can see more processing artefacts in the nebula, don't think its noise. You'll fly with the new camera!

[SnakeyJ]

Had a good look at these and all are good. The last s best in terms of sky background colour, brightness and contrast though (on my screen anyway) I can see more processing artefacts in the nebula, don't think its noise. You'll fly with the new camera!

Thanks Anthony - getting better slowly, though I agree I've over stretched the nebula on the last one and got some big holes from the noise reduction when I blow it up to 200% - Back to the drawing board again!

The CCD is still some way off unless I can push work for a Christmas divi, but hopefully I can get my eye in on this data and improve the processing skils and iron out the tracking/guiding issues to start getting some longer subs and some fainter targets. Getting things permanently setup in the observatory is definitely going to help - Then I think I'll be looking for the EQ6/MN190 combination to get the most of the 460EX. I'll still have the 6" achro for my visual fix, at least until that 1/8 VX10 comes up on ABS

[JamesF]

Very nice. That outer nebulosity really needs a fair bit of time to get enough data I reckon. It's so hard to pull it out of the background sky without making it look overstretched.

James