My 1st M45 LRGB with CCD

[geoflewis]

I started this as a test image having swapped my QSI camera from the C14 to the 4" APO early in December, after completing the Blue Snowball on 9 Dec 2018. My primary intention was to shoot some wider field targets in Orion during Dec/Jan with the Witches Head top of my list. Unfortunately the weather since then has been such that I stuggled to get enough data for an LRGB image of M45, never mind shoot the lower altitude Witches Head.

I finally got a extended period of clear sky on 28 Jan 2019, though even then transparancy was poor, with increasing haze and passing cloud as the night progressed, but with the upcoming forecast again poor I pressed on. The blue channel data in particular turned out very poor, with large halos around all the main stars, which has fed through into the final image.

Anyway, here's what I got from  6x10 mins each RGB and 17x10 mins L

Thanks for looking.

Geof

 

[MartinFransson]

I really like the colours and the soft, smooth nebulosity. There is however something weird with the brightest stars. Maybe a sharp star mask during stretching?

[geoflewis]

14 minutes ago, MartinFransson said:

I really like the colours and the soft, smooth nebulosity. There is however something weird with the brightest stars. Maybe a sharp star mask during stretching?

Thanks Martin, I tried a few things with those stars including removing them before applying the high pass filter used to sharpen the shock waves in the nebulosity, but I couldn't loose those rings. Having looked at each of the LRGB stacks they seem to come mostly from the Blue data. I guess my processing skills just aren't up to muster for this challenge...?