NGC 6960 Western Veil Nebula LRGB

[AstroAndy]

NGC 6960, the Western Veil Nebula in Cygnus, PHD Guiding on a 9x50 finderscope, prime focus, telescope SW 200P 8" (200mm) f/5 Newtonian reflector, 36x3m, 36f, 30db, integration time (altogether) 1:48h. This one I processed a little bit differently.

While I'm not an expert yet, I know processing, but was wondering why my pictures are not as good as they could be. Gradients, light pollution, colors thrown off. So a lot of work went into this one, changing the file format on the lights, darks and bias (into tifs) in the Faststone Image Viewer software,(so I could work with them), cropping and resizing all except the flats, which I didn't use, in Photoshop (creating an action so it would go faster). Instead, each sub got its own gradient removing flat, which I made from the original image, 36 of them, to subtract the gradient (and some off color), and the gradient only, in Photoshop. Worked wonders. Then into DSS for stacking and bias, dark subtraction. Then back into Photoshop for final processing. This was done with a Canon EOS1100D non-modded from a light polluted area.

[Baselessum]

That looks great, gives us mere mortals inspiration and some hope of one day getting a half decent image, well done brilliant image.

[AstroAndy]

Ty, lol, although I'm still firmly stuck amongst the mere mortals.

[Elio]

Grat job for unmodded dslr, you can improve the image with astronomy tools in PS, take a look here... http://www.prodigitalsoftware.com/Astronomy_Tools_For_Full_Version.html

This is the second time in a day I link this ... though I'm not a vendor 

[AstroAndy]

Ty, will have a look @ it.

[sharkmelley]

I am a great fan of DSLR cameras but I am well aware of their limitations. You are really up against it by attempting to image faint emission nebulosity with an unmodified camera in light polluted skies - you have so much against you.  You don't say if you were using a light pollution filter but it is absolutely essential to use one when imaging emission nebulae without narrowband filters.  It helps enormously to reduce background gradients and greatly improves contrast between the nebula and background.  With an unmodded camera the H-alpha (red) will be severely attentuated.  I can see vertical streaking in the background of the image - this is fairly typical of Canons when a lot of light pollution has been subtracted from the image.

Mark