M6 & M7

[Albireo380]

This image was taken from Portugal last month, using a driven mount with a Canon 350D. The lens was a sigma zoom at 120mm, f4.5. The single exposure was 2.5 minutes. The star in the bottom right of the image is Shaula - the "sting" in the Scorpions tail.

It was a bit of a test, to see what came out.

Hope you like it

Tom

[Sam]

Great shot! I hope you don't mind Tom, but I've tried to bring out the Milky Way a bit more :

(click to enlarge)

Sam

[Jeff RV]

Nice one Tom.

And the reprocessed one Sam.

Jeff.

[dogfish]

So we've no chance of seeing those pair from Drymen then, Tom?

Martin

[Albireo380]

Thanks for reprocessing Sam. Mt photoshop skills are very limited. You have brought out the Milky way nicely.

Hi Martin, yes of course we could see this from Drymen, only thing is, you probably need to go about 5 miles up before you could see that far past the horizon. One of the advantages of Portugal is that it is 20 degrees closer to the Equator (as well as being Sunny during the day, clear and not humid at night.

Tom

[qcdougn]

Tom,

Very nice image. I really like it. Here's a little wider shot that I took last year or so. The brighter stars at Center-bottom are the stars that make the Stinger in Scorpio. M6 and M7 are to the left of these.

Cheers,

Doug

http://www.fototime.com/AE3C8F3ED3768E0/orig.jpg

[Albireo380]

WOW Doug, what a great image. Full of Majesty - gives a real sense of the Vastness of our own Galaxy. :cheers: :salute: :salute:

Thanks for that - if you have more, please post in "Widefield & Special Events".

Tom

[poltabs]

Lightbucket & qcdougn - would you mind sharing how you processed your images, would help lots!

Many thanks

Kevin

[Cloudwatcher]

Terrific picture,Tom,loads of interest to be found in there.

I've had a quick dabble,left the Wilky May more or less as is,just brightened the stars a bit.

Don't suppose Portugal exports sky by any chance?

Cheers

CW

Click as usual.

[Sam]

Poltabs, I flatten the field with PixInsight.exe, see this link:

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,28275.msg287467.html#msg287467

Then in Gimp I gently used levels to bring out a few more stars and highlight the Milky way a bit.

Tom's image is excellent and there's heaps of data!

Sam

[Tim]

WOWOWEEE!!

Excellent images there.

You guys are lucky to get sky dark enough to capture data like that, from where I live a 2.5 min exposure with a wide angle lens would just result in a red smudge.

qcdoug, your image made it into my personal store, it has good stablemates, only the finest APOD end up there

TJ

[qcdougn]

Thank you all for the kind remarks. I did not mean to over shadow Tom's very nice M6 & M7. ... Great job.

My processing was basically done in PS6, with levels and curves. I may have used some of Noel Carboni's tool actions to enhance a little...I don't remember. By the way, this was taken with a Sigma 70-300mm DG APO lens. It's really not very expensive. But, the APO qualities show on the brighter stars. I am impressed with the lens and hope to do more with it when I can get to dark skies.

Cheers,

Doug

[Cloudwatcher]

Ditching a few more images and thought I'd post this comparison between the Starry Night screen and your image,Tom,before they go for good.

You've probably done the same already but it's a cool image and worth a repeat anyway............

Cheers

CW

Click as usual.