M57

[Ant]

Here's another image from last night, one that I actually forgot that I took.

Canon 300D, 30 x 30 seconds, ISO 1600

I quite like these widefield shots as you can tell and I got the central star! Chuffed with this one.

Tried to bring some red out but there was almost no red in the image to start with

Ant

[Carl]

Nice Shot Ant You got the bluey colour of M57 clearly,you even got the central star,and i can`t even see light pollution(unlike the sky in my back garden).You should be well chuffed.You ever fought of posting it to the Sky At night magazine or Astronomy now magazine?.

[russ]

Ant, that's a really nice widefield shot.....just how you like em!!!

Would it be okay to have the tiff for a play, the one straight from ImagesPlus. See if i can tease out some red.

Russ

[Ant]

Cheers guys, I was fairly happy with that!

MoonHunter, cheers I was happy to have the central star showing on such a wide field veiw. I process out the LP in photoshop. A touch of curves normally sorts tht out!!!

Russ, from memory the file is a tad big. How big a file can your email accept?

Ant

[russ]

Hi Ant,

Had a quick go, will have a proper go later when i'm not supposed to be working.

Looked better in photoshop, doesn't look so good uploaded

Russ

[Ant]

Oi give me my central star back...

You have managed to more of the Red out- I managed to get no red at all. Nice one... how did you do it? What I might do is conbine the two images and see what we get!

Cheers Russ

Ant

[russ]

I'll boost the contrast and unsharp to get the central star back. This is the problem i had with M57 in June. Either a nice bright ring with a central star but a bit flat in terms of colour. Or better colours with a dimmer ring and no central star.

As you say a combo of the two would be good.

Russ

[AndyMac]

A combo of the two sounds good - but that's a very good M57 with the central star, Ant. Don't think I ever managed to capture it, myself.

[russ]

Hi Ant,

Had another play, this cropping it so it's not such a large FOV. It shows the structure of the Ring better and the central star. Red slightly overcooked now though.

Great image btw :o :)

Russ

[Ant]

WOW thats better... I had a similar idea! I was going to go back to the original CRW files and stack them full size - I usually resize to 50% (somtimes even less) before stacking.

Ant

[OXO]

That looks fantastic Ant!

A good job by Russ too..

James

[Astroman]

I hate to tell you this, but the star imaged "inside" M57 is not the central star. It is often mistaken for the central star, but isn't actually it. It is a mag 11.5 star well in the foreground. The central star is mag 15.0 to 15.3, depending on the filter and errors. This image should include IC 1296, a galaxy at mag 15 also, but no sign of it is there. Sorry.

[Ant]

Bottom! I wouldn't get down to mag 15 with 30 second subs... Thanks for the info Astroman. Might try longer subs next time.

Ant

[OXO]

Hi Ant,

Since Astroman's post i have been pondering this as i was sure i seen the said objects whilst processing your image the other day.

Here's an image i have processed from your first M57 pic post in this thread it look's fine to me unless i am missing something? No offence Astroman and maybe i am wrong

I have got rid of the Colours to make it as clear as i can..

James :)

[AndyMac]

Looks really swell James. And I just love that central star! :)

[Astroman]

It looks like the central star, it is nearly perfectly centered, but it is not THE central star. tHE central star is about 10 arc-seconds to the south and east. It is a white dwarf star of magnitude 15.3 or so and clearly not reached in this image. It is a common error. Take a look at your fluffed up image, James. The star at 12:00 is mag 15.0 and has a 15.0 companion. The star at 2:00 is mag 14.7. There's a star right next to it at mag 15.3. I personally can't see this star in your image, although maybe if I was in a darker place I could. Be that as it may, the star visible in the center is clearly brighter than the 15.0 stars above the nebula.

[OXO]

I can still see it Astroman :)

James

[AndyMac]

And not capturing the galaxy IC1296 is no big deal as it wasn't the intended target. M57 was. Most object are much more difficult to capture by your typical city dweller in the UK.

[Ant]

What about this, does this help. The is the result of the stack processed. This is also at full resolution of the camera - just cropped...

What this does do is give you an idea of just how damn big these individual images are... I used images plus to convert on as I thought that it would save me time but the resulting tif was 142meg :shock:

Still can't see the central star though - which is a real shame.

Ant