iris nebula data

[Astroblagger]

Hello I plan to image the iris nebula tonight, obviously i hope to get as many L as i can but will i get away binning 2x2 on the rgb or is it better to go 1x1 on the colour?

[johnrt]

I bin my RGB 2x2 and re-scale to match the lum shot at full resolution, it works well for me.

[Astroblagger]

are there any merits for doing the rgb 1x1 verses 2x2 apart from rescaling?

[Skipper Billy]

I used 1x1 for Lum and 2x2 for RGB - I am a rank beginner but I was happy with the result.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/113316085@N05/30653324686/in/album-72157675109735132/

 

[ollypenrice]

It's not as simple as saying, 'bin or don't bin' irrespective of the scope and camera. Firstly it depends on your unbinned pixel scale. Your 120/Atik 314 runs unbinned at 1.48"PP by my reckoning. (No reducer.) That would take you to just under 3"PP binned. Anything up to about 3.5 or so will give acceptable stars so I doubt there is much of a price to pay. It also depends on the target for me. If I'm capturing an object plus a starfield, or just a starry image, I want the best possible stars so I wouldn't bin at all. In the Iris region it is all dust so this doesn't apply.

On the other hand if you shoot unbinned RGB you can extract a synthetic lum from it and add this to the real lum. (This is sometimes called Superluminance.) It could help keep the noise down in the dusty regions.

Well that was a BIG help, eh??? 

Olly

[Astroblagger]

I'm using an ed80 and reducer atik 314l+, will just bIn the rgb 2x2. See how it goes. -all set up for hopefully 2 clear nights here in Scotland a rarity!!