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NGC891 + buddies with Horsehead on the side

Uranium235

By Uranium235
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Uranium235

Uranium235

Posted
Posted

At last! Some clear sky after the battering we've had.

Firstly, I had to switch back to the 80ED because I suddenly realised I could go through an entire winter season with nothing to show for it - so the 130pds is on hold for a moment (trying to solve a tipped field issue). Anyway, it wasnt quite as clear as forecast because I got buzzed by cloud during my blue channel - so I ended up with a few gradients and a blue haze around the bright star to the right (creatively dealt with in Ps). Plus, Orion was bearing down on me (as if to say "image me now!") so I decided to use synth green only. Hopefully tomorrow will be clear enough to mop up the remainder.

Also, its my first atttempt at binning with this camera in LRGB - and I think its worked quite well (sampling rate at 2x2 is about 4.35"). What I did was to meet the scale of the Lum and RGB "halfway" - ie: rescale the lum to 75%, then rescale the RGB to 150%. That seems to reduce any blockiness that would occur if id resized the RGB by 200%.

Next up was the HH and flame, ive decided this will be the anchor frame for the Orion mosaic. Again, play was interrupted by cloud - hence just 90min worth of data. Will top it up to about 2.5 hours then image a 3 pane strip to the right. When processing this one I had to make Alnitak behave (told it to go sit on the naughty step) by way of a couple of layer masks. 

NGC891:

12x600 L, 12x300 R&B 2x2 bin

HH & Flame

9x600 (Ha)

80ED, Atik 383L+, NEQ6

Thanks for looking! :)

Rob

NGC891 and (numerous) buddies:

11635391576_09e53a93eb_b.jpg

Fullsize:

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2850/11635391576_f6b2986368_o.jpg

HH & Flame WIP:

11634272346_54a6bcfaea_b.jpg
 

Fullsize:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3779/11634272346_618999eb61_o.jpg

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Jannis

Jannis

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Very nice. :)

I did NGC891 yesterday as well, but haven't been able to process it yet. It's not even close to as sharp and detailed as yours though. Seeing pics like these makes me really want an 80ED as well, hehe. :)

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Barry, on 30 Dec 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

Lovely images Rob. I am looking forward to sing the Orion mosaic.

BTW, do you add the diffraction spikes in software?

Barry

Thanks Barry, the small diffraction spikes are completely natural. They are caused by the cell clips on the 80ED and become more prominent the closer the telescope is to perfect focus. Some telescopes have more clips, and other similar spikes are produced from camera lenses (I think they have 5 or 6 clips).

ollypenrice, on 30 Dec 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

I like them both. Galaxies in a wide field have a certain something. Alnitak is good, too. A clean double.

Olly

Thanks Olly! Actually, I had to refer to your version of NGC891 of this when I discovered what I thought was an internal reflection below the blue star to the right. Turns out its just a very peculiar shaped galaxy, but I dont have its ID since it isnt listed in my planetarium software.

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Cheers Andy, ive updated NGC891 with a bit with some lab colour - but have discovered why a couple of my channels still have gradients.... well - its not a gradient, its the camera shutter (doh!). It seems that 4 seconds at 2x2 bin is not enough to avoid the shutter in my flats. And I cant go back because ive since cleaned the optical train.... more lessons learnt!

Anyway, I will upload it in a bit, Ive also done a cheeky M45 on the side as the sky decided to give me a bit of bonus time before clouding over completely.

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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I now have an updated verion, in full LAB colour. Also, ive added another 105min worth of Lum - which has cleaned up the background very nicely indeed!! :)

Also, ive applied layer masks to the brigher blue and red stars to keep them tight.

View the fullsize version and see how many fuzzies you can spot!

11675102235_fd1ebfbd34_b.jpg

 

Fullsize:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3695/11675102235_720f620bf8_o.jpg

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Here is the M45 smash and grab, just an hours worth - but processed with layer masks to really tame those stars. It uncovers some of the detail that would otherwise be lost if the stars became too bloated. Diffraction spikes from the cell clips seems to be a side effect, but I dont mind that :)

Should look pretty good once I get two or three hours of Lum on board. Will be binning the colour since it worked so well in the above post.

11675757763_5cf3ba068a_b.jpg
 

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jackrussell0232

jackrussell0232

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Some great work there Rob.  I love the 891 widefield, (although the star colours are a little bit strong for me).  I wish I knew how you got them like that though, because I'm struggling to get mine anything other than a horrid blue/cyan mix...   

Always lots to learn, I guess.  Enjoyed looking at these though.

Jack

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Paul73

Paul73

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Rob

Really enjoyed your wide field shot. Spent a while spotting the DSO's in the shot. Nothing but clouds here so getting the scope out wasn't an option! Also, Flame/Horsehead image looked great without the colour. Seems more 3D for some reason.

Paul

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Some great work there Rob.  I love the 891 widefield, (although the star colours are a little bit strong for me).  I wish I knew how you got them like that though, because I'm struggling to get mine anything other than a horrid blue/cyan mix...   

Always lots to learn, I guess.  Enjoyed looking at these though.

Jack

I changed from rgb to lab colour because the stars always seem to keep their colour better throughout the development process, and the saturation seems to work better. With rgb, the star colours were always tilted towards red.  With lab, its a better balance towards blue - but then Ive found the DSO object suffers a little colour drain. The compomise thats given me the best colour so far is RGB object, lab stars.

Rob

Really enjoyed your wide field shot. Spent a while spotting the DSO's in the shot. Nothing but clouds here so getting the scope out wasn't an option! Also, Flame/Horsehead image looked great without the colour. Seems more 3D for some reason.

Paul

Thanks :) Ive had a good scan around that photo and have so far counted 26 galaxies, most of which havent been picked up by astrometry.net (they only seem to annote with NGC numbers).

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