Soul and a bit of a heart in Ha and fake colour UPDATED

[gorann]

It suddenly cleared for three hours on Thursday so I had my second attempt at Ha imaging. The moon could not be fuller and snow on the ground made it difficult to even see the brightest stars. So basically I really doubted that I would get any data of value, especially since I was using a rather wide (12nm) Ha filter and an unmodded DSLR.

This is 18 x 8 min with a Canon 300mm f/4 (@f/4) and an unmodded Canon 60D (ISO1600) with an Astronomic 12nm clip filter. Sitting on my EQ8.

Then, a little devil woke up inside me and I may have done something illegal (but I think I remember having seen Sara done it once): I colourized the image by playing around with it in various ways in Photoshop.....

 

Comments, suggestions and angry screams most welcome!

 

EDIT: I have now added 8 x 20 min of data to the centre of the image from my 5" refactor (with a Canon 60Da) sitting side by side with the telephoto lens. Quite a bit more detail now to be seen. I had given up on that data and not even looked at it until today, the reason being that 5 out of 8 subs were taken at ISO 12800 (which I used for framing) and I thought it woul just be too noisy. I stacked it together with the last three frames taken at ISO1600 and the noise was not that bad. The -15°C outside probably helped a bit.

I also post a crop of the area covered by the 5" refactor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alan potts]

Well considering conditions you had and I know exactly what you mean with snow about I think this is a lovely shot I am not even bothered about the colour which I don't feel is overdone. Nice capture!!

Alan

[gorann]

4 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Well considering conditions you had and I know exactly what you mean with snow about I think this is a lovely shot I am not even bothered about the colour which I don't feel is overdone. Nice capture!!

Alan

Thanks Alan, very kind!

[wimvb]

That turned out very well. I like it.

[gorann]

Thanks Wim!

Not sure why I had not tried Ha imaging on moony nights before. Probably did not think it was worth while with my DSLRs.

[gorann]

I just updated the post with added data from my 5" refractor.

[Barry-Wilson]

Very creative Goran - and not 'cheating' at all.

Your image has turned out really well - you have the drive to maximise the potential of your data . . . and you've got a lovely result .

[gorann]

Thanks Barry!

yes, with the clouds conspiring against us up here in northern Europe I try to compensate with a triple rig, free data from places like the Liverpool Telescope, and now Ha imaging on moon lit nights, to get data to process, which (possibly like you) I find to be the most rewarding part of this hobby. I am quite tempted to go down the path of remote imaging.....

[Rodd]

Nice FOV (am I getting a premonition of a mosaic?).  I love the palette.

Rodd

[Adam J]

Very nice you got better color than me and I actually used OIII data!