Flying Dragon(s) Sh2-114 from Bortle 8

[carastro]

VERY  faint object - taken from home, just didn't want to waste the lovely clear skies we have been having lately.

It's quite noisy but to be expected in the circumstances, I must try this again at a dark site.
I decided as I went along that I needed to increase the length of Ha exposures, hence the different lengths.
Plus a meridian flip in the middle of it all, a bit of a mission to process with the RGB being binned anyway.
Ha 900 x 14
Ha 600 x 2
Ha 1200 x 4 (total Ha 5 Hours 10mins
RGB 9 x 300 binned x 2
RGB 15 x 200 binned x 2
Total RGB 1 hour 35mins

Grand total 6 hours 45 mins
Atik428EX, SWED80, HEQ5

Mapped HaRGB

This was done on the 2nd night of "Who is out to play tonight" thread.

Edited August 27, 2019 by carastro

[carastro]

Have taken a 2nd look at the processing on this.

Carole 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by carastro

[mattjanes100]

Great work, the second version really pops!

Amazing what is possible even from a bortle 8.

[carastro]

Thanks Matt.   

Carole 

 

[fwm891]

Great image Carole - second processing really improves it.

[carastro]

Thanks Francis.  

Carole 

[Jkulin]

Hi Carole, Yep the second one is really cool.

[tooth_dr]

Excellent Carole. Lovely image. 

[carastro]

Thanks Adam,

I must try this from a dark location.  

Carole 

[x6gas]

Really excellent capture and process Carole - great work!

[carastro]

Thanks X6gas

[gorann]

Nice image from Bortle 8 Carole! Really impressive since I know how faint this one is. Funny, I decided a few hours ago to go for the Flying Dragon tonight. I got Bortle 2 - 3 but the moon is up so it will only be Ha to add to HaRGB data I have from last year.

[carastro]

Thanks Goran.  

I see all these interesting images on Astrobin and bookmark them, but as things stand, there is no clue on there as to how faint these things are, or where they were imaged.  Anyway, I now know it really needs to be done from a much darker sky.

Lucky you with Bortle 2 - 3, I don't think I have ever seen skies that dark.  

Carole 

 

[Jkulin]

16 hours ago, carastro said:

Thanks Goran.  

I see all these interesting images on Astrobin and bookmark them, but as things stand, there is no clue on there as to how faint these things are, or where they were imaged.  Anyway, I now know it really needs to be done from a much darker sky.

Lucky you with Bortle 2 - 3, I don't think I have ever seen skies that dark.  

Carole 

 

Hi Carole, if I see something interesting then I look up the RA and Dec in Cartes Du Ciel, by searching the image, then right clicking and getting the info, then in SGP I use the Ra and Dec figures in the planning wizard.

I wrote a database about a year ago and keep a record of each interesting image, with the complete data, images, URL etc. Its proved very useful for those images that you find that you don't want to forget, I also bookmark in Astrobin.

HTH

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, Jkulin said:

I wrote a database about a year ago and keep a record of each interesting image, with the complete data, images, URL etc. Its proved very useful for those images that you find that you don't want to forget, I also bookmark in Astrobin.

I've scribbled them all in various notebooks going back years, then can never find them and if I do I can't read my writing 😂

Dave

[Jkulin]

This is the sort of thing I log into my database for targets: -

And then when I have captured the data I enter on another form, like this: -

[carastro]

Your system is very neat Goran,  I made myself a word file called Catalgue of targets, with constellation and co-ordinates when I can find them if there is no NGC, IC or M number for them.  Also add a photo if I need a reminder.

Like you I also bookmark them on Astrobin, but I should do a bit more research on how faint things are I fancy doing.

Carole 

 

 

[carastro]

Well I managed to get a further 2 hours at Kelling on this target, it did at least show up better on looping (couldn't not see it at all from Home (Bortle) 8, even on a 600sec sub all I could see were the eyebrows.  But the final sub was STILL very faint even from kelling.

Still very noisy, so I guess this is going to be a long project. 

So now: A mixture of scopes and cameras,

7 hours 10 mins on Ha
1 hour 35mins RGB
Total 8 hours 45 minutes

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by carastro

[Davey-T]

On 19/09/2019 at 16:29, Jkulin said:

This is the sort of thing I log into my database for targets: -

Very organised John, I did start a database in Access 2000, so you can see how long ago it was, had a place holder to click to retrieve image from a folder but could never get that bit to work 😟

Dave

[Jkulin]

1 hour ago, Davey-T said:

Very organised John, I did start a database in Access 2000, so you can see how long ago it was, had a place holder to click to retrieve image from a folder but could never get that bit to work 😟

Dave

Cheers Dave,

Early Access was clunky to add images to, the newer versions are a cinch.

I'm finding that I may need to modify the form and add some extra data rows, as I'm not using some of the fields and could do with fields for flats durations, binning and focus points with temps.

I have tried to keep it simple without any queries (more because I couldn't work them out 😉 ),

[carastro]

Following Olly's "Exploiting Photoshop's Equalize function" tip on another thread, I managed to get this today.

What a difference, especially considering only 2 hours from Kelling in Ha and very little RGB from Bortle 8.  It's a bit Magenta, but am reluctant to reduce this as I tend to lose the faint stuff. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by carastro

[teoria_del_big_bang]

It certainly has made a difference 🙂 

Steve

[carastro]

Thanks Steve

[Ibbo!]

Certainly brought more out.

I have a few Ha subs on this and I might try that technique.

[ollypenrice]

It's going well, Carole. Regarding noise, don't forget that you can do some custom noise reduction based on a careful look at the noise in a particular image. Zoom right in to pixel scale and see what the noise is made of, so to speak. For me it's often made of overly dark pixels scattered around in a generally lighter background sky. So I use Curves and pin the background at and above the level of the lighter background pixels and lift the curve below those. Or you might find a scattering of green or magenta pixels, or whatever. Select them using Colour Select and adjust them to match their neighbours. This is a good way of reducing noise without the blurring which gives that oily look from standard noise reduction commands.

On this one your background still looks a tiny tad green to me. You could measure it in Ps using the colour sampler from the Eyedropper tool.

Olly