My longest exposure by now - M27

[mpeniak]

Hi Guys,

This one is from Dartmoor and its 120x30sec exposure. I used my C8-N with Canon-350D

Conditions were fine apart from Moon rising and dew that formed on my mirror.

Need some advice. I have also included those images that were taken when the mirror was dewed.

Hence these were a bit fainter than other. Would it help if I did not include them in the stacking process please?

Hope you like the image

Martin

(click to enlarge)

REPROCESSED

(click to enlarge)

The image is in hi-res so please enlarge it.

Any feedback very much appreciated.

[MikeD]

Nice shot.

Need some advice. I have also included those images that were taken when the mirror was dewed.

Hence these were a bit fainter than other. Would it help if I did not include them in the stacking process

It depends, if the dew was not to bad the extra data may still help reduce the noise in the image, give it a go with out the dewed data and see.

I noticed the green in histogram is clipped, I had a quick look and adjusted the colour levels but the darker levels of green are lost and this has resulted in the fainter detail in M27 being too blue IMO.

It may be worth another look at the original data.

Hope this helps.

Mike.

[mpeniak]

Thanks for advice Mike. I will have another look.

[LostNSpace]

Hi Martin!!!

Not a bad M27, even if it is a little too blue......The data is there to play with and im far from being an expert when it comes to processing, hope you dont mind but i had a play with your image and heres the result.......

(click to enlarge)

I 1st darkened the background a little more using the black dropper in levels.....Then adjusted the shadow in colour curves to the max and then tweaked the Hue/Saturation.....

Its still not perfect but like i said im far from being an expert......

Mark

[mpeniak]

Sure I dont mind

[Cloudwatcher]

Hi,Marrtin,good to see you back. :wave:

I had a quick swing at your image having isolated the neb' on a separate layer and applied Auto colour. Used the sharpen tool set on luminosity 20% and the sponge tool on saturate. As for the background I used levels set for red and moved the pointer towards the right. The background looked a bit contrasty,with all those stars showing up so the brightness/contrast controls were used to dampen it down bit. Not sure I have the balance quite right but M27 does show up better against the stars.

Cheers

CW

Click as usual.

[aries]

Sorry guy's and gal's, but do we have some AWESOME Imaging and processing talent on SGL, or WHAT!!!!!!!!!

Watching people like Yfronto, CW, and LostNSpace, to name but a few, turn

an Image that would have me smiling for weeks, into a real belter, that would have me knocking on the door to the Editor's of certain magazines!!!!!!!!

First class work from you all......

Hope that your guidance for my step into this side of Astronomy,

doesn't grate with you too much!

'Cos I'm gonna need it!!!

I am Humble in the company of the Great............ :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

Nick.......

[MartinB]

Martin, I don't know what stacking software you are using but if you can use a a sigma reject type filter you will be able to keep the data in the dew affected images which is still ok and the combine will reject a lot of the dodgy stuff - provided you aren't using too many affected frames.

You have a problem with colour bias. This is a doddle to correct with levels. Just open levels and select each channel in turn. Make sure the left hand slider is moved to the left hand side of the start of the histogram (making sure you don't actually cut into the histogram). This should give you a nice neutral background.