That 'man' again (UPDATED)

[centroid]

Actually had a whole evening of clear sky last night :cheers:

Its been some time since I had an evening's serious imaging, as since getting back from Oz in November, there have been so many interuptions (Christmas, new bathroom, and of course :) ).

The few times that I have got out to the obsy, its been a case of testing this, that or the other.

So, being blessed with a clear sky, no Moon, and a new Hutech IDAS LPS filter I wanted to try, I went back to NGC 1977 (The Running Man), as I'd 'grabbed' an hour this very recently, and although a 'noisy' result, I would be able to assess the affect, if any, of the Hutech filter on the colour.

So, here's the result from last night. 2 hours in 24x300sec subs, with the SXVF-H9C (+ IDAS filter), attached to the Meade 80mm triplet, and guided with the SX Lodestar, attached to the ZS66.

All of this 'piggy backed' on the 12" LX200R.

The image was debayered, aligned and stacked in AA4, before final processing in P/Shop.

The effect of the IDAS filter on the colour was very noticeable, in that the usual reds and pinks, had a very strong magenta hue, and I had to 'juggle' with the colour balance to get the colour back to something more accepatable. So, I guess its a case of the IDAS filter controlling any LP as it 'says on the tin', but at the expense of some colour corruption.

As far as detail is concerned, there is a significant difference/improvement, over the 12x300 sec subs image that I took recently.

Dave

[CELESCOPE]

Looks like you had a very productive evening Dave getting the rose as well . as you said lovely to get out albeit just one image for me , well done on a couple of nice images

Rog

[centroid]

Yep!!, same problem here, as with the 'Rosette', in that AA4 has saved the 16 bit original as an 8 bit :x .

Very strange this, as AA4 is capturing in 16 bit, but when the subs are aligned and stacked, then re-saved as a FIT or TIFF, is saving them as 8 bit. This means I'm importing an image in P/shop with half the data missing. :x

I've posted this issue on the AA forum.

Dave

[Whippy]

Fingers crossed you get it sorted Dave as I'm sure the 16bit will look loads better .

Tony..

[centroid]

Ok, here's the 16 bit version of this one, as it should have been in the first place, sorry

Dave

[moondog]

Glad you got your number of 'bits' sorted out Dave - the 16 bit image shows a very worthwhile increase in detail. Extremely good Running Man.

I look forward to being able to start imaging when I get back to the UK in March. To say I'll be a bit rusty will be an understatement!. The imaging bar seems to have been raised even higher since I came out to NZ. The quality of all images now posted on SGL wether solar system or DSO is fantastic.

8)

MD

[Psychobilly]

Nice Iamge Dave.

If you think the IDAS screws up the colours don't ever try a CLS or Lumicon Deep Sky... which give much stronger color casts.

Billy...

[George]

Second image is a lot smoother Dave, those missing bits certainly made the difference

[MartinB]

Nice to see the Running Man on his own rather than being overshadowed by his glam neighbour. Nice colour in the image. On my monitor at work I'm seeing some halos around the stars.

[centroid]

You do indeed see halos Martin, and most likely from where I had to struggle with the processing, due not knowing at the time, there was ambient light leaking into the camera.

The leak is now hopefully 'plugged', but to late for this one .

Ah well, next time now hopefully

Dave