IC 1318 in Hubble Palette (from a couple of months ago)

[GordonH]

Hi All

Just been catching up on some processing and tweaking of images. I took this image of IC 1318 earlier on when Cygnus was more overhead. It is taken with 6x10 minute unguided subframes per filter using Ha, OIII and SII in the HST palette, there certainly is a lot going on in this region as far as nebulosity is concerned and this image only covers a small area of it. Sadr is the bright star in the middle. I took a Ha only image of the same region earlier on and this can be seen in the nebulae section of the image gallery on my website http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk for comparison

Taken with TMB 115 and Starlight Xpress H36

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon

[narrowbandpaul]

very nice gordon...

[Stephen Green]

A very nice image Gordon

Stephen

[GordonH]

Hi guys

Thanks for the comments, I had an email from Richard Crisp of http://www.narrowbandimaging.com who gave me some useful tips to bring out a bit more detail in the OIII and SII data while making the Ha a bit less green and predominant, so I had a go at tweaking the levels, curves and colour balance and came very close to what he showed me, I certainly think it is better but it has introduced some noise into the image which is more evident on the full resolution image, anyway here it is for comparison

Best wishes

Gordon

[narrowbandpaul]

more noise? yes

but still tres good.

lovely colouring for being a less than perfect narrowband target

how strong, ie faint, are the OIII and SII lines for this target Gordon

[GordonH]

Hi Paul

Very faint, Richard Crisp says he has never really had much success with it because the OIII and SII lines are very weak

Best wishes

Gordon

[narrowbandpaul]

i take it you saw jp mestavainio's image?...astroanarchy...(hercule on NBI)

it was pretty good, had data from each line showing

but if RDC says its faint then its faint. I tend to agree with him, its easier in the long run :-)

[GordonH]

Hi Paul

Yes I have seen this site, amazing colour contrasts and I presume he has some special techniques to bring out the extra subtleties, I think I saw an image he did of the California nebula which clearly showed all emission lines and RC had never managed to get any OIII in this image, I agree with you comments about RC, there is no point in getting into a discussion with him about something where you disagree with him as he has his own way of doing things and that is that. My view is that photography is a form of art no matter what type of photography or what type of filter you use and as such it should be left up to the artist to be creative and offer his interpretation of how he sees the subject even if the end result is not exactly as it "should appear", as I have said before it would be terribly boring if everybody produced exactly the same image of M42 ie same shape, same amount of nebulosity, same colour balance, etc. Although I see his point and I agree with what he says, at the same time I believe there is more than one way to skin a cat. Some people may find it hard to accept that I don't use autoguiding, that I don't use flat field frames (yet) and quite often I use simple autodark subtraction in Maxim DL rather than taking 10 dark frames, median combining, etc before subtracting, but at the moment it works for me and I am happy with the results.

Anyway that is enough of me ranting

Best wishes

Gordon

[narrowbandpaul]

it should be up to the imager how he processes his images

i dont yet use flats, and find a decent SNR if the subs are long enough!

however with the faint lines like O[iII] and S[iI] it would be best to do all we can to remove noise. But at times this isnt practical....

Paul

[RobH]

Very nice image Gordon.

I agree with your comments about each image being a work of art. Astrophotography is a fascinating combination of art and science, and at the end of the day, the results do the talking, and yours are consistently first class.

Cheers

Rob

[GordonH]

Hi Rob

Thanks very much for those comments, they are very much appreciated

Best wishes

Gordon