M78 and some of Barnards Loop

[swag72]

5 minutes ago, Gina said:

Excellent as always Sara   I don't like RGB processing either but you have succeeded.  I've looked at M78 but got nothing though that's not surprising if you needed over 40 hours - no chance of that over here!!

There's plenty of folks who have got a great M78 with less data...... I don't think you actually *need* that much, but..... As I don't like LRGB imaging as well as finding it so very difficult to process,  I knew that more data would give me less of a processing headache.

I guess it kind of worked as by iteration 5 I had something recognisable..... It just took another 25 goes to get it to this stage  

[symesie04]

Thats incredible Sara, was going to make a joke about not being your work but decided against it. Its gorgeous such detail and colour. 47.5 hrs crikey oh to have such wonderful skies.

[swag72]

Ha...... All my own work LOL!!!!!  

[tony210]

Great!-Tony.

[swag72]

Thanks Tony! Glad that you like it

[Maximidius]

WOW..looks real, I mean - like you're actually looking at the real thing (i know, we are lol, but it's so realistic ) - incredible image. Did you do all the processing with photoshop?

[swag72]

Thanks @Maximidius - I'm glad that you like it!

I did use DBE in Pixinsight to reduce the gradients in the LRGB channels as I always get nasty gradients if not doing narrowband due to my light pollution - But apart from that, everything was done in Photoshop.

[Adriano]

Excellent image of M78. Very well done. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[swag72]

Thanks Adriano! Glad that you enjoyed it

[ultranova]

Beautifully executed in all areas,

A real treat on for the eyes

Nicely done Sara

Paul

[Tom OD]

Very nice Sara, as for the 47 hours, now that is what I like to hear

Tom

[swag72]

Thanks Paul and Tom ..... data hours sure are easy to build up in a dual rig

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice Sara, I like the fact you got the brown dust well defined and it's not all red. I went with this approach a while back to a somewhat tepid response but feel it is more accurate.  Nice work across the image too.

Paddy

[swag72]

Thanks Paddy - I generally use internet resources of imagers that I like and I found that there was still a whole host of different takes on the dust and the loop colour.... In the end I settled for what I liked  Not what was accurate ..... as you know that I don't really care about accuracy