M27 - one night work

[jimao22]

Two nights ago I had an amazing night sky, one of the few this year. My set-up worked great from the beginning to the end so I started exposures at 10 pm and finish them at 4:00. The guiding was better after the meridian flip so from my 8x1200 Ha I kept only 6. The rest of 9x1200 OIII was perfect.

FWHM around 2.2 in Ha and 2.1 in OIII. Composition is Ha-OIII-OIII.

My usual set-up - MN190/EQ6 belt-drive/EQMOD , Atik314L+ mono/-5 degrees Celsius, guided by OAG/QHY5II-L mono.

Acquisition, calibration with dark and flats, stacking - MaximDL

Registered and color combine - PI

Sharp, contrast, deconvolution, life, denoise, etc - StarTools

Pink extinction on stars and some color balance - PS-CS2

Automatic focus - FocusMax

If weather will allow, I will add some extra signal and perhaps I will fallow a new path for processing.  

[Ewan]

Jim that is looking very very nice, the O3 data is a beauty.

1200 secs is pleanty for this but more of them will really help (stating the obvious i know :-)).

You can use Selective colour as a layer in PS to help removing the purple/pink hue on the NB stars btw + boost the red channel on the target.

Was that at f5.3 also ?

[jimao22]

A new instance of processing after an addition of signal in Ha - a total of 8x1200 sec and 4x1800 sec in combination, of course, with 9x1200 sec OIII.

I did process more in PixInsight (background calibration, color calibration) and I followed a different path with StarTools. Now the picture look more natural (in my oppinion), with a black (not green) sky, a wither nebula in the center and much more details inside.

[ChrisLX200]

The Ha part of the outer halo is very faint indeed, the OIII 'wings' are brighter though. Well done.

ChrisH

[jimao22]

Thanks Ewan, thanks Chris. By the way, I am Cristian and not Jim. That's my nickname - Jimmy.

[PNJ]

top draw, love it

paul j