M35 & NGC 2158

[PhotoGav]

Here is my rendition of the open cluster Messier 35, some 2,800 light years away in the constellation of Gemini. It also features the compact open cluster NGC 2158. I have to say that the supporting role played by NGC 2158 is crucial. Quite honestly, it would be a relatively uninteresting image without it.

Technical details are:

Altair Astro 102ED with 0.8x reducer, QSI-683-WSG with Baader 1.25" filters, HEQ5 Pro.

L = 24 x 600s
RGB = 12 x 600s each
TOTAL = 10 hours

I don't have much to say about this one. I'm reasonably happy with the way it has come out, though slightly disappointed that it isn't more breathtaking! Oh well, at least I tried. One thing, please don't inspect the top right corner too closely... dodgy to say the least - not sure where that has come from.

Clear skies all, though we are now moving towards another Full Moon, so not much use for us deep sky lovers even if it does clear up!

 

[gnomus]

Nice one Gav.  I've run into that top right corner issue before.  A couple of solutions.  1) Try splitting channels and then aligning in Registar.  2) Make a copy.  In the copy, go to channels.  Select the red channel and then the move tool.  Use the arrow keys to nudge the red channel until the top right looks OK.  Of course the other stars will be wrong.   But copy that 'fixed' version on top of the original, mask it and paint in the top right area with the corrected stars.

[cfpendock]

That's nice, Gav - not familiar with this area of sky.  Following your instruction to examine the top right corner very closely, yes, there is an alignment issue.  But to be honest, without your instruction to make a close inspection of this corner, I would have missed it.....  However, having looked very carefully, are the stars in the bottom left hand corner very slightly elongated?  Maybe just my screen.

I like the image, but I think I would try to pull a bit more colour out of the stars.  That's just me...and my other comments are being hyper-critical.

Chris

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Steve & Chris.

That's a good couple of solutions there Steve, thank you, I will give them a try.

Yes Chris, the bottom left is a bit stretchy. All in all, not my best image so far! I have a feeling that the conditions were far from perfect with this project, or at least that's a fairly good excuse for a sub standard image! As for star colour, I have tweaked as much as I dare without actually altering/doctoring the colour. I would have expected more blue stars in there, but not much to be found. I often struggle with finding blues in my images, perhaps it is partly my sky conditions (again!)?

[Peter Drew]

1 hour ago, PhotoGav said:

Here is my rendition of the open cluster Messier 35, some 2,800 light years away in the constellation of Gemini. It also features the compact open cluster NGC 2158. I have to say that the supporting role played by NGC 2158 is crucial. Quite honestly, it would be a relatively uninteresting image without it.

Technical details are:

Altair Astro 102ED with 0.8x reducer, QSI-683-WSG with Baader 1.25" filters, HEQ5 Pro.

L = 24 x 600s
RGB = 12 x 600s each
TOTAL = 10 hours

I don't have much to say about this one. I'm reasonably happy with the way it has come out, though slightly disappointed that it isn't more breathtaking! Oh well, at least I tried. One thing, please don't inspect the top right corner too closely... dodgy to say the least - not sure where that has come from.

Clear skies all, though we are now moving towards another Full Moon, so not much use for us deep sky lovers even if it does clear up!

 

M35 lies in a fairly star rich area of the sky, imaging tends to swamp it with the extra stars that are brought into view. Visually it is rather more impressive as a relatively stand alone object. 

[abhoriel]

Beautiful image.. I think its breathtaking anyway. In fact I love star clusters.. they seem to get under-imaged compared to nebulae and galaxies

[PhotoGav]

11 hours ago, abhoriel said:

Beautiful image.. I think its breathtaking anyway. In fact I love star clusters.. they seem to get under-imaged compared to nebulae and galaxies

Thank you @abhoriel - you are right, clusters are the underimaged cousins of nebulae and galaxies. They have their own fascination though and are rather pleasing simply because the images look somewhat like the view you get through a telescope!

[ollypenrice]

I think it's lovely. The colour looks fine in NGC 2158 but in M35 I found a good bit more blue star colour than is showing here. I think the slightly subdued look of M35 (only slightly, mind) comes from this lack of blue.

Olly

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Olly. I completely agree, it is lacking in any significant blue colour. I have kept processing pretty simple with this image, just some stretching, a run of HLVG, a run of GradientXterminator, a bit of 'increase star colour' and one iteration of 'Saturate Block' - I think that was pretty much it. So, does my data just have no blue in it or am I missing a cunning technique to bring out the blues?

[ollypenrice]

I don't know. Your M35 stars are a cooler colour than those of the NGC so the data is, so to speak, doing its best! Using layers it might be possible to give the high blues a lift and then let the modified stars through from that layer using Noel's star selection method. Could this be an LP filter issue?

Because I have sometimes suspected our TEC of rendering blue stars overly blue I just checked the bright stars in M35 for their B-V colour index using SkyMap Pro and they are indeed predominantly blue. 

Olly

[theo]

Lovely image of a lovely target. As mentioned above some extra blue would top it off nicely but still, I do like this a lot as it is.

Pete

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Pete and Olly. I think I will have a tinker and see if I can 'get the blues'!

I saw a print out of this picture today, done on a fairly low quality printer which had subdued a lot of the smaller stars making the clusters far more evident. It made me consider my approach for the new attempt and is something I might try and replicate. Though I don't want to go too far down the 'doctoring the data' route...