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M45 Pleiades - WIP


TakMan

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Lost the mojo for major processing runs (mostly sticking to mono Ha to 'see where we are')... this is one of my first broadband projects for some time - enjoying the capturing / honing the equipment side still though and slowly collecting plenty of narrowband data to sort at some stage when the mood takes me.

Still reguarly check in here to admire the constantly improving output of work - feel I'm getting left behind a tad !

Clear Outside now suggests that the outskirts of Lichfield is a demoralising Bortle 6 region... plus the added 'bonus' of HS2 engineering works not much more than a mile away - hence my propensity to concentrate on narrowband target acquisition.

Was hoping to collect more on this.... and forgot to try 2x BIN for the RGB component - so that's a test for another day.

This is currently running at 27x 600 seconds (4 1/2 Hrs) for the Luminance, and 9x 600 seconds (1 1/2 Hrs) for each of the RGB channels (all 1x BIN).

So next season, would like to double that amount to try and get more of the dust - still amazed that I got what I did !

Chroma 50mm unmounted filters, dark and flat frame calibrated + dark flats (aligned/stacked/gradient removal in APP).

FSQ106ED @ f/5 - Atik 16200M (running at -20ºC), Atik OAG/SBIG-ST-i

A quick and cheerful processing run then. Global applications of levels, curves, contrast enhancement, a small amount of star and noise reduction. A colour saturation adjustment / boost, with a single dose of HiPass sharpening - all via Ps in under an hour with zero masking....

Next go will be more considered with the application of stand-a-lone StarNet++ (after a Ps pre-stretch) - all on OSX.

Decided to leave the green in for now.... have an old copy of Ps on a Windows7 machine that has HLVG, so may even try that as looking on SGL, most versions posted are more icy-blue, so this version is something of an outlier.....!

Do the double-click for the warts and all, full size jpeg (small crop from stacking only).

Clear skies...

Damian

 

M45_L_RGB_V1.jpg

Edited by TakMan
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Got chance today to have another play with this data-set after re-doing the RGB calibration and LP removal.
Slightly different colour palette from that previously posted... also now different areas of dust showing (especially lower left), whether this is now correct I have no idea !
You can see the misshapen stars* more now in the lower right which is a bit of a pity, but there is more detail now resolved in the central blue wisps of dust and the larger stars are just a tad smaller which makes me happy.... and perhaps just a tad less noise....
Could continue to play for hours and continue to get different results, but today I can say has been fun - and it's been some time since I was able to say I've enjoyed the processing part - so a win-win.
* If I had PI, it would be interesting to see if the new 'XT's' could sort this out, but I don't want to upgrade my Mac's OSX to be able to try, so for now I'll have to live with it....

Thanks for looking again....

Damian

image.thumb.jpeg.cf040efbdf0b5f124378647722bc4850.jpeg

 

To finish, just as a bit of fun - a bit of... 'art'... dare I use that word here - pushed to within an inch of its life with a dose of Star Spikes Pro !

The structure of the underlying CCD is starting to show - vertical lines in the centre and on the right (I've seen this with other 16200 based cameras), but I think that next year it's still worth getting more data on this...

M45_RGBv2copy_ART.thumb.jpg.464c6ef1c4dcbcd63b9ac58c9317078f.jpg

Edited by TakMan
'Art' addition !
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12 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Nice to see you back!

Thank you Olly…
Wouldn’t go as far as… ‘back’ - I don’t think I have the output of work to go that far!
Good to see that you are still producing lots of quality work, I dread to think how many hard drives you now have full of data!

D

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