Melotte 15 in IC 1805

[Kbramley]

This is the result of my recent imaging attempt, 14 hours of data gathered over about 3 weeks, kit as per signature. There are a few halos around some stars as a result of trying to control them blooming, a few more passes on the processing and I should be able to improve

8x1800s Ha

9x1800s OIII

11x1800s SII

Mel 15 is about 7500 light years away in the direction of Cassiopeia and is an active star forming region.

big version here http://www.astrobin.com/full/125155/B/

Enjoy

Keith

[markarian]

Amazing! Beautiful image - well worth the time you put in.

Mark

[peter shah]

love the colour great image

[ChrisLX200]

Nice colour balance on this

ChrisH

[perfrej]

Very nice rendition and very likable. The only thing I can say that I would further do to it is a complete kill of the magenta. That would make the stars nicer.

/per 

[Stargazer33]

Lovely rich colour. Really nice image.

[Kbramley]

Thanks for the comments everyone

Thanks for the tip Per, I will have a play with selective colour and see if I can tweak the magenta a touch, the upper most bright star is the biggest pain as that has a horrible halo from the OIII filter.

Cheers

Keith

[adamphillips]

very nice. what filters are those?

[perfrej]

You can simply add a hue/saturation layer and kill it there.

/per

[swag72]

Looking very nice indeed

[Kbramley]

Hi Adam, I'm using the Baader narrowband filters, SII (8.5nm), Ha(7nm) and OIII(8nm), all 2"

[AstroVis]

Hi Keith,

Congratulations, very impressive, nice Colors and deep Image. Did you use 'Tone Mapping' (removing stars) for the Image processing?

My actual Project since 28.9. is also Melotte15, but only 2 nights were clear enough. So I only got the Ha-Channel and wait for OIII and SII.

Here my Ha-Version until now:

Ha 26 x 900sec + Bias, Darks und Flats

http://www.astrovis.at/cluster_melotte15.php

or 100%

http://www.astrovis.at/images/cluster_melotte15Hal.jpg

Regards

Horst

[Kbramley]

Hi Horst,

Thats a great start with the Ha, lots of contrast and detail, the TEC 140 is a mighty scope.

The SII and OIII channels are quite faint (as always), plus I didn't image mine during optimium conditions which didn't help but clear nights are are few and far between . 

To keep the stars under control I used a star mask, its the first time I have tried it so needs more work to prevent halos forming around the stars but it seems to worked reasonably well, I have seen tone mapping used a lot but never tried it myself yet, i will take another look and see how it works with this image.

Keith

[StuartJPP]

Nothing wrong with that...like the colours.

[Uranium235]

Nice image, and you've steered away from the classic hubble "blue and gold".... looks good!

[AstroVis]

Hi Keith,

I have a short summary of how I used tone mapping with IC1848:

http://www.astrovis.at/cs01112013.php

Regards

Horst

[Kbramley]

Cheers Horst, certainly helps bring out the SII and OIII data when the stars are eliminated.

Uranium - I tried a few colour ideas and settled on the nice brown colour for the dust and a light Cyan colour for the brighter background part with a darker blue for the more fainter background. I have noticed though it does look different on my mobile and laptop. I am toying with doing a less saturated version too with a bit more faint wispy stuff to try and give it a more natural look.

[PhotoGav]

Keith, I absolutely love this image, brilliant, well done! The colours are fantastic, so rich and intense. The dusty detail is wonderful. There is something quite religious about this image, in a ceiling of the Sistine Chapel kind of religious Renaissance art style way. I think that's the Stairway To Heaven isn't it!?!

[Mr Bergman]

Fantastic image with great colours! Impressive work. /Erik

[Kbramley]

Thanks for all your kind comments.

If I could guarantee two weeks of clear skies I would do a mosaic