Just an idea - mono imaging in narrowband and RGB

[Andrew*]

I had an idea for imaging e.g. M57, or in fact any nebulae rich in OIII and Ha.

I don't have an Ha filter, so I could take some through my Baader OIII, and assign it to blue and green, and take some through an R filter and assign it to red. Thereby getting the typical red and blue/green configuration you usually associate with the Ring.

Has anyone tried combining narrowband and R,G (or) B?

I realise I would have to balance the channels carefully to get a similar level of exposure, and would probably have to fix lots of red stars, but it could work, right??

Andrew

[MartinB]

It could work Andrew and you've identified the main problem which is fixing the star colour. You often see this in images where people have substituted Ha for red - results in teal coloured stars. Are you planning doing this with a mono camera or a DSLR?

[Andrew*]

Cheers Martin

It could work Andrew and you've identified the main problem which is fixing the star colour. You often see this in images where people have substituted Ha for red - results in teal coloured stars. Are you planning doing this with a mono camera or a DSLR?

Mono.

Andrew

[narrowbandpaul]

depends if star colour is important...

straight NB can give funny stars if the exposure in one channel is weak, but adding a RGB helps give good stars.

for me, I couldnt care less about stars. I wont sacrifice nebula detail over star colour.

Paul

[MartinB]

I find star colour very important to the overall aesthetic quality of an image. If star colour matters to you you would be best off getting G and B data as well as the R. If you have photoshop you then add the G and blue data to the OIII G+B using the individual channels using "lighten" as the blend mode. This should leave you with the wide channel colour forming the stars and the narrow band forming the nebulosity.

Much easier just to stick with your plan if you aren't concerned about red stars.