Elephant Trunk

[Starwiz]

I'm not totally happy with the stars on this one.  I think they could look better but not sure how to improve it further, so any advice is very welcome.

Just over 30 hours integration from Mellieħa, Malta over several nights during the new moon period using 15 minute exposures in SHO.

The stars were captured separately with a couple of hours of RGB.

Stratton was used for star removal from the SHO data.

Thanks

John

[Rustang]

Very nice 👏👏

[Erling G-P]

Stunning image!

[rnobleeddy]

On 17/07/2021 at 19:33, Starwiz said:

Stratton was used for star removal from the SHO data.

I was unfamiliar with that software - but I guess it suffers the usual issue that it doesn't work with diffraction spikes. I'll give it a go anyway!

[Starwiz]

On 19/07/2021 at 00:38, rnobleeddy said:

I was unfamiliar with that software - but I guess it suffers the usual issue that it doesn't work with diffraction spikes. I'll give it a go anyway!

Yes, there's still a lot of unwanted artifacts left by Straton to clean up after the stars are removed.  It's important to take it slowly to avoid destroying any of the scientific data and it probably took me a few hours on this one.

[powerlord]

very nice. i can only hope to get something similar as I'm doing the same just now. Can I ask - were you using 139 gain ? And is that with the 200p ?

stu

[Starwiz]

On 21/07/2021 at 22:16, powerlord said:

very nice. i can only hope to get something similar as I'm doing the same just now. Can I ask - were you using 139 gain ? And is that with the 200p ?

stu

Hi Stu,

For the NB I used Gain=200, Offset=50.

For the RGB stars I used 90s exposures with Gain=0, Offset=10.

I've since reworked the stars which I think look a little better now.

John

 

[Starwiz]

On 21/07/2021 at 22:16, powerlord said:

And is that with the 200p ?

Yes, the 200P.