Bewitched Witch...

[geoflewis]

Fabulous image Olly and a very interesting and informative thread to read too.

I've yet to image that target, but it's been on my list to do since early December, however, I haven't had any clear skies for weeks. I did some test shots early December to work out what I could frame with my QSI583 plus 4" TSAPO and created a sequence in SGP. I then started an LRGB sequence on M45, but only managed 6x10min subs since when the obs has remained firmly closed ?. I'll only be ably to frame the top third or so of the head (actually about the top right quadrant in your displayed image) with my rig unless I mosaic, which is something I've never done and I'm not ready to start that adventure yet. I didn't consider shooting any Ha, but maybe I'll add some if ever I get the opportunity to shoot the LRGB first, though that said it looks like the Ha is mostly in the region ouside my intended FOV framing, so perhaps not.

Cheers, Geof

[MikeODay]

17 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I think that's the charm of the Ha layer on this target. it gives the impression of lying between the depths of space and the Witch, so creating foreground and background. I've always liked versions with Ha the best but my previous Witch was too tightly framed to benefit. In truth I think the Ha is physically associated with the dusty structures because it clearly traced the 'head' shape.

Without Ha it was like this:

Olly

I really like the way you have bought out the white smokey cloud from the background - I like them both but I see what you mean about the Ha adding more depth.

[Pompey Monkey]

On 03/01/2019 at 12:16, ollypenrice said:

I think it's just a difficult star. It's made slightly more difficult if you add an Ha layer because it sits right in a patch of emission. I doubt that the poor seeing would greatly affect it, really. What I should do is go back and redo it using just the RGB data. I might have a play with that now.

There really is a lot to be said for SE France, though you need to be as far as possible from the coast without getting too close to Lyon!

Olly

A tweak to the star using RGB only. I suspect that the dust in the region also softens the stars though the seeing didn't help.

 

I like this one the most although, for once, your colour saturation is actually a bit less than my effort from a couple of years back: http://www.astrobin.com/full/270715/0/

You have much tighter stars than me and I suspect that it's a processing technique that I'm yet to have much success with. I certainly think I might try to get the Ha to add to it - at least this might be possible with my Chroma 3 nm filter from home. If the skies ever clear, that is!

On 03/01/2019 at 19:58, ollypenrice said:

Thanks, David. Much appreciated.

In truth you wouldn't get many subs, even short ones, without sat trails in this region. I would never throw away a sub because it had a trail, either! Eek, the very idea...   I relied on a reasonable sub count and AstroArt's sigma clip to do most of the work. I did remove some whoppers with the 'remove line' tool as well. Once into the post processing stage I used Noel's Actions to deal with the residue. He has Vertical or Horizontal Banding Noise Reduction which works a treat. (If your sat trails are not vertical or horizontal you temporarily rotate the image till they are. In this case the sats seem to be in polar orbits and ran down the image vertically, which was good of them!)) I use this tool on a bottom layer and then erase the top over the trails so as not to have the action messing with the whole image.

The off-shot flares from bright stars were more of a pain but what's Photoshop there for? Thuggery, of course!

Olly

 

Interesting. I got a huge flare from Rigel in mine, but not a trace from β Eridanus. Odd, Most Odd. ( A "like" to the first person who gets the reference ).

[ollypenrice]

20 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

I like this one the most although, for once, your colour saturation is actually a bit less than my effort from a couple of years back: http://www.astrobin.com/full/270715/0/

You have much tighter stars than me and I suspect that it's a processing technique that I'm yet to have much success with. I certainly think I might try to get the Ha to add to it - at least this might be possible with my Chroma 3 nm filter from home. If the skies ever clear, that is!

Interesting. I got a huge flare from Rigel in mine, but not a trace from β Eridanus. Odd, Most Odd. ( A "like" to the first person who gets the reference ).

Hi Paul, I saw yours on Astrobin and thought it very good. I reckon the general dustiness in this region softens the stars. I've felt the same in other dusty areas, notably the starfield around IC342.

All I had to do to lose the flare from Beta Eridanus was nudge the frame slightly away from it and it vanished. The nudge was maybe 30 pixels but it did it. (Don't get the reference though!)

Olly

[Barry-Wilson]

What's also fascinating is the contrast bewteen the 'blue-ish' molecular dust and the two red ERE-type molecular dust clouds.  I wonder if their differing emission colours signify differing radiation environments and they are in fact spatial separated?  Excellent image Olly - got to love that FOV!

[toxic]

co blimey thats awesome

[ollypenrice]

33 minutes ago, Barry-Wilson said:

What's also fascinating is the contrast bewteen the 'blue-ish' molecular dust and the two red ERE-type molecular dust clouds.  I wonder if their differing emission colours signify differing radiation environments and they are in fact spatial separated?  Excellent image Olly - got to love that FOV!

An excellent question. They seem to share at least a comparable orientation but (in the orientation of my image) the blue-ish molecular dust seems to be swept from above while the ERE components seem to be swept from the upper right. It's a subtle difference but it would be interesting to hear from the professionals. The density of the particles might affect the extent to which a particle wind deflected them. But at this level I'm over and out!

Olly

[eshy76]

That image is show-stopping! Gasp-inducing! Congratulations indeed!  

[petevasey]

Magnificent, Olly!

I've tried for this before, but it never gets higher than 28 deg. from here.  And this season clear nights are averaging at most 2 a month ?  I can see a winter trip to Les Granges might be on the cards some time ?

Cheers,

Peter