M45 Test Run

[Pluto]

Hi all at this moment in time i am testing my equipment, camera's, software etc..

after having so much problems trying to get the right setup, i gave it a test run last night

it was a bit on the windy side but still had a go, i took 6x2min guided exposure's, no drift alignment

was done.

the problem i have is by putting all my time into getting this side of stuff right i have no knowledge of processing

so if someone with spare time can have ago at the subs and post the result, feedback it would be appreciated

here is the link to the file

http://ukastronomers.com/Pluto/action/download_files/fileid/70

[Cloudwatcher]

Had a try with Photoshop................... details included on result.

Cheers.CW

[barkis]

Hi. Pluto,

I had a dabble with your Image too. I am not as professional as CW I'm afraid. I just played with GradientX, Levels & Curves a bit. I converted it to JPEG and cut the file size down a bit and cropped it slightly.

Looks slightly better enlarged I think. Anyway, CW's looks more Pleiades like having the blue colour surrounding the cluster.

Ron.

(click to enlarge)

[Pluto]

Thank you both for giving it a shot

[iancandler]

I had a quick go, heres what I did.

Duplicated the original file so I had 20 copies, then ran them through registax, a little work in wavelets after stacking, darkened the background using the gama control and adjusted the RGB balance.

Opened the resulting image in photoshop where I ran it through the gradient and noise reduction actions in noels actions.

reduced the size and boosted the saturation to bring out the colours, levels to darken the background, finally gave it an overall vibrancy boost in noels DSLR actions.

I hope you like it.

[barkis]

That is a great improvement Ian. Nice one.

Ron.

[iancandler]

Thanks, I often find if you have a single image, you can improve it very slightly by making a number of duplicates and running them through registax.

Pluto, I was concerned about the gradient still showing so had a closer look today at the original and the ones I processed, there seems to be a lot of red around the cluster (this is what the centre gradient is), I'm wondering if this could be IR raditation and whether or not you are using an IR cut filter on your camera, if not it might be worth trying one.