M78 LRGB

[Avdhoeven]

Recently I have been working on images of M78. My image location is heavily light-polluted and therefor many images are necessary. I shot about 11 hours of luminance data from my backyard on 25 and 26 December.

Luckily Maximo Ruiz from Spain shared his color image of this region with me so that I could generate a LRGB image of M78. This was my hardest target until now, as the dark clouds are very hard to catch from my environment. I'm planning to gather more data when weather permits, but for now I'm already very happy with the result.

Luminance:
Telescope: TEC140
Camera: QSI583 with astrodon L-filter
Exposures: 62x600s and 8x300s (11 hours)

Color:
Camera: Canon 50D (cooled)
Telescope: Orion optics CT8
Exposures: 25x720s (5 hours)

[Hawklord]

Very nice. I like the strong colours

[Epicycle]

Lovely rendition of M78. At first glance the core looks just a little bit saturated, any chance of taming it a bit? You might pick up more

blue this way...

[Avdhoeven]

Epicycle: thanks! I just made a small adaptation with the cores. Do you think this is better?

[Epicycle]

Yeap, I prefer the second version. What software did you use for combining the data form the two scopes?

[Avdhoeven]

I used registax to align the images and then used layers in photoshop...

There is an extended description here:

link

[symesie04]

very nice

[Steve 1962]

I really like the second one.

[carastro]

That's really lovely.  I live in a heavily LP area so it's nice to see what can be achieved.

Carole 

[ollypenrice]

As you say, this is a murderous object especially from an imperfect sky. You still have quite a bit of noise after all that time but that won't be your fault, it is just an object that struggles to make itself seen above sky noise. Nice processing both of the Lum and colour.

Olly

[Avdhoeven]

As you say, this is a murderous object especially from an imperfect sky. You still have quite a bit of noise after all that time but that won't be your fault, it is just an object that struggles to make itself seen above sky noise.

Olly

I plan to make more images as soon as weather changes. I want to see how far I can get...

[sologuitarist61]

I think that is possible the best redition I have seen of M78, both versions are good but image 2 has a slight edge on the first one

[Graham Darke]

Absolutely stunning.

[Mr Spock]

The second image is much improved. I like the colour, really nice.

[pietervdv]

Great work on a difficult object  Do you credit the astrodon L filter for cutting through light pollution that well, or did you use an extra LP filter?

Regards,

Pieter

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Very nice, like a swirl of cream in chocolate. I prefer the second version with the tweaked core.

[Avdhoeven]

I didn't use any lp filter so it must be the astrodon filter I guess. I will post an lp map with my location later. 

[Avdhoeven]

This is my nice location: