M27 at F10

[rikyuu]

After forcasting heavy cloud and raining all evening, I looked outside at 10pm and it was crystal clear, well except for that huge flood light........the moon of course! (The old "clear night = nearly full moon" rule).

Still I thought I'd have a go at M27 without the focal reducer on the C8 SCT, hence F/10 and F=2000mm, to see how good my auto guiding really is.

It wasn't an ideal night to do it, particularly after a couple of home made ciders, it weas getting late and work the next day! It took me a good hour and a half to start to capture any decent images, the auto guiding was playing up, then a cable got looped around the mount, then I forgot to set the DSLR to bulb so it only took 25s shots, finally the laptop battery died just as swapped in the new one (it has 2) so the guiding was lost.

However, I did get 5x5 mins subs, ISO800, Canon 300d, filter removed, CLS-EOS clip filter added. Here's my first proccess, thanks for looking;

ps, apologies if it looks too red, it's proccessed on my old laptop on which the colours are not very vivid.

[rikyuu]

another go.....

[rikyuu]

another go...

[barkis]

That's a damned fine effort under adverse conditions.

F10 is a challenge under the best of circumstances, so you did good.

Ron.

[Cloudwatcher]

Just like to echo Ron's comments.

Taking you at your word I felt free to 'improve' your image ......wether or not you consider this is an improvement is another matter

[rikyuu]

Ron - I think I was the most adverse condition!!

Cloudwatcher - yes, that is a nice improvement, many thanks. My processing is still a bit variable. I use PS and tend to use a bit of levels, curves in R, G and B, and some unsharp masking. However, I struggle a bit to bring out the detail you have without introducing too much noise or over exposing a certain area.

I would be very grateful if you could tell me what steps you took, so I could give them a try.

Cheers

[Coco]

Looks great... even before my Cider

Now cloudwatcher has tweaked it it looks well smart..

Guy..