Double Cluster & M45 From Kelling

[Paxo]

Due to work commitments, I've only just got around to processing the data from the Sunday night at Kelling. Had an irritating technical problem on the night where the guidecamera needed manually starting following each main camera download, spent 30 mins trying to fathom then decided it was a pain to do but it was better than getting no data.

Tech details:

Imaging Scope: WO FLT110 with TMB Field flattener

Imaging Camera: SX-VR H36

Guidescope: WO Megrez72

Guidecamera: Atik 314L

Software: Guiding and capture through Maxim 5

Mount: EQ6 Pro controlled with EQMOD

Image Details

Double Cluster

Luminance: 10 x 180 secs

Red: 10 x 180 secs

Green: 10 x 180 secs

Blue: 10 x 180 secs

M45

Luminance: 10 x 300 secs

Red: 10 x 120 secs binned 2x2

Green: 10 x 120 secs binned 2x2

Blue: 10 x 120 secs binned 2x2

Both combined in DSS and processed in Photoshop CS. Click on the images for a larger version.

Double Cluster in Perseus

in closeup:

M45

Difficult processing this one as there is so much faint nebulosity all around the image, but in particular at the top of the imafe with some dark reflection material.

Thanks for looking.

Steve..

[Beyond_Vision]

Now that was worth the wait Steve, a beautiful double cluster image. M45 is a bit saturated it would be good to run Pix-Insight HDR wavelets on it.

Regards

Kevin

[TakMan]

Love the Double Cluster Steve(!), especially the star colours....

M45 not bad either - perhaps a bit 'light'?.... In 'your face' though!

Damian

[barkis]

Cracking images Steve. I'm a big fan of h&x Perseus, as a result of the great Images now being produced of the clusters. Th e film versions were no match for modern results.

The Pleiades is all about the areas nebulosity, and there is plenty of it in this Image. Very nice.

Ron.

[Sparrow]

Nice images - as M45 is one of my targets at the moment it's nice to see other images of it - I love the wispy nebulosity.

[Paxo]

Thanks for the comments, a reprocess on M45 coming up I think. We had a couple of banks of wispy cloud come through during the night, I need to check the subs to ensure non of this was picked up. Also regretting binning the colour, should have just left as 1x1.

I'm more used to processing mono Ha images so this has been a little bit of a learning curve so thanks for the comments on processing options Kevin.

Steve..

[ashenlight]

IMO, You can't have an M45 without nebulosity it's a wonderful image very ethereal.

That Double Cluster is (IMHO) the best I've seen so far this season.... I'm no techie on imaging but it's so bright and crisp. For me, some images just haven't captured the 'jewel box' that it is - but yours has. Can I pinch it for my desktop?

[ncjunk]

Steve,

I like the double cluster a lot very nice and the M45 is good as well.

NC

[RobH]

Hello Steve.

That double cluster is a cracker!

M45 looks good, but you were maybe a bit hard with the blackpoint as the nebulousity seems to have been lost a bit in the very faint areas.

To bin colour or not to bin!

I'm now going down the unbinned route....takes longer but the results are better I think.

Cheers

Rob

[Paxo]

Hello Steve.

I'm now going down the unbinned route....takes longer but the results are better I think.

Cheers

Rob

Think I'll do that in the future as well Rob, you can never have too much data afterall.

Amanda - Please fell free to pinch

Steve

[ashenlight]

it looks even better on my desktop thanks Steve

[ollypenrice]

Great stuff. I particularly like the Double Cluster which is alive with colour. Personally (and this might be just my monitor) I might pull dow the green channel a tad.

Re binning, my own view is now to avoid it. I would avoid it like the plague at low elevations, in images in which the stars are important or in any image involving a narrowband input at some stage.

Olly

[rich_t]

That's a lovely M45 Steve, very nice nebulosity and colour. The double cluster is good one too:)

Thanks for all the exposure details.

Cheers,

Rich.

[Tom OD]

Great shots Paxo, the Double cluster has good rich colour and it sparkles, but it looks like it has a bit of a green cast to it.

Tom.

[Ford Prefect]

Nice one mate, Cracking images!!!!

I was starting to wonder where these images had got to

Cheers Jon

[Paxo]

I've done a bit of a rework on M45, better star colour than the original I think, the nebulosity could probably be pushed a bit more.

Steve..

[lunator]

Steve

It's a good image :D

I do like the colour

Cheers

Ian

[ollypenrice]

Improved! The dark haloes have gone. Just out of curiosity you might try giving the low reds a wee push to see if there's anything there. You might find a bit of something dusty lurking around the outskirts of the nebula in the upper part of your (excellent) image.

Olly

[Paxo]

Thanks Olly, I'll give that a go.

Steve..

[beamish]

Hya Steve !

Fantastic double cluster, I'm loving the star colours in there ! Like the reworked M45 too.

Karlo

[Coco]

M45... WOW!... love that target..

Guy..

[roundycat]

I'm a bit curious about your guiding problem, I use an Atik 16 and Maxim 4.58 and never had a problem like that: did you solve it?

As for binning, never bin on clusters, they are much too bright to need it. It's ok for very dim targets or when your image scale is patently ridiculous, like better than 1"/pix.

Dennis

[Tim]

very nice pics Steve

[Paxo]

I'm a bit curious about your guiding problem, I use an Atik 16 and Maxim 4.58 and never had a problem like that: did you solve it?

Dennis

Turns out to be a driver problem. I was using Maxim 5.02, and to cut a long story short, I had to reinstall the driver for the Atik on the day, it works find with the latest driver I have found later. The system works fine in the obsy on the desktop machine in there, it was just a problem with a new setup on the laptop.

Maxim stops the autoguider camera while downloading from the H36, it was when it was trying to restart the camera it was reporting a communication error - it just needed the guiding button pressed and away it went again, inconvenient but it was better than losing imaging time.

Steve..

[daz]

Wondered where these had got too!!

Very nice indeed! Has the finger recovered??