Tribute to the Pillars

[MarsG76]

Hello all,

 

This is my latest image of the Eagle nebula (M16/NGC6611) in the constellation Serpens, this time imaged through narrowband filters using my 8" Celectron SCT, at F10 - 2032mm focal length, with my astromodded and active cooled Canon 40D DSLR.

The second image is a cropped and rotated version to emphasize the famous "Pillars of Creation" part of the nebula, made popular by the HST image of the same name.

The color channels are SII, HAlpha and OIII as RGB, and color balanced to remove the heavy green color cast created by the strong Hydrogen Alpha signal.

 

The total exposure time spent on this image was 20 hours and 57 minutes consisting of the following subs exposures:

RGB: 13x15s, 19x30s, 17x60s, 12x90s, 17x120s, 15x180s

HII: 2x600s, 9x900s, 4x1200s

OIII: 1x600s, 8x900s, 1x1200s, 11x1500s

SII: 2x500s, 14x1800s

All at ISO1600.

 

Clear Skies,

MG

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by MarsG76

[MarkAR]

Pretty good. There's some star halo that detracts a little, not sure if it's down to processing or filters. 

Also worth inverting the image and doing SCNR on green to reduce the purple tinge.

Overall though, the pillars have come out well.

[MarsG76]

14 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Pretty good. There's some star halo that detracts a little, not sure if it's down to processing or filters. 

Also worth inverting the image and doing SCNR on green to reduce the purple tinge.

Overall though, the pillars have come out well.

Those star halo's are much better than they were during the initial combining of the SHO channels.... but now that you mention it, when I get a bit of time, I might do Starnet++ on each channel and perhaps add the RGB stars... might make the stars tighter and improve the overall image?

 

[simmo39]

I think that is amazing! Need to get some time on this target myself but all we have is clouds!

[tooth_dr]

A master with the 40d Mariusz  excellent work. 

[MarkAR]

3 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

might make the stars tighter and improve the overall image?

Worth a try, halo's can be really difficult. Another option is to try and soften the halo's so they aren't so defined.

Edited August 31, 2020 by MarkAR

[MarsG76]

Thank you all for the kind comments...

 

[MarsG76]

On 31/08/2020 at 20:19, MarkAR said:

Worth a try, halo's can be really difficult. Another option is to try and soften the halo's so they aren't so defined.

I might try (when I get some time to play) and remove the stars again, this time from this final version image that I posted and deal with the halos in that way... perhaps adding the RGB stars from my short exposed subs to keep them tight....

[MarsG76]

On 31/08/2020 at 19:31, tooth_dr said:

A master with the 40d Mariusz  excellent work. 

When I cooled my 40D and reached around freezing on the sensor on nights when it 20C, the quality of my subs increased substantially... to the point where I'm wondering about exactly how much improvement would I have with a cam like the ZWO 1600MM/2600MC on my gear in the real world situation... is it really worth the few thousand $ expense?

I mean my 1800 second NB subs are almost noise free now... I dither all subs and so really the only improvement in the real world would be time taken to capture the same about of photons per sub.. ie a sensor with 35-40% vs 80% QE .. but exposure time is of no bother as I have a lot of clear nights and a permanent setup that works nearly flawlessly resulting in round stars at 2032mm focal length. I can set it up after/before work nights, start the subs exposures, forget about it while it does its thing all night while I sleep... The only thing I'm short on is processing and actual eyepiece observation time.

 

 

[MarsG76]

I played with the data a bit more and I'm going to leave it at this point.. no matter what I do from here, the image starts to look over cooked and over processed, but that said, the stars looks slightly tighter and there is a bit more detail within the pillars, subtle as it is...

Edited September 4, 2020 by MarsG76

[Datalord]

It looks to me like you have some problems with focus. How did you focus for the various filters?

[MarsG76]

On 05/09/2020 at 20:24, Datalord said:

It looks to me like you have some problems with focus. How did you focus for the various filters?

I don't think that I have any problems with focus, but more of a atmospheric seeing issue... I use a bathinov mask to focus with every filter.