Crab Nebula

[JCJC]

A clear night , it's been a while. Had to rush around fitting my DIY dew heater I'd only just finished as the scopes were cooling, but it seemed to keep the corrector clear even in these below freezing temperatures which is promising.

Started taking a few subs of the horsehead, then decided it was too low, the light polution was bad and someone had started a wood burning stove just below it next door.

Switched to M1, managed 7 x 6mins, darks and flats stacked in DSS and processed in CS3. Surprised at how little noise there was from such a low exposure time, might have something to do with the temperature being bellow freezing.

Taken through the C6 with f6.3 reducer using modded Canon 350D and CLS Clip Filter on a EQ6 Pro running EQMod with CDC guided Skywatcher ST80, Phillips SPC900NC webcam and PHD

42mins, 7 x 6min ISO 800 with 1.5mins gap

[Catanonia]

Lovely image and nice to see the clear structure. I have over currently about 3 hours on this target with a 1000D and clip filter and want to add more.

Are you planning on adding more to this, would be interesting to see the comparisons.

[MartinB]

Well done, that is a nicely detailed and coloured M1

[JCJC]

Thanks for the kind comments Martin and Catanonia,

I would like to see a comparison as well and will hopefully add more to this if the clouds break up again.

Jordan

[brendant]

A very nice image with lovely structure, detail and colour. Well done.

Brendan

[Catanonia]

JCJC : Here is a link to mine. Only major difference between our setups is I am using a Baader modded 1000D compared to your 350D

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/92998-crab-nebula-m1.html

Hopefully I will be able to add more to it tonight.

Good luck with yours, it is coming on amazingly

[MikeD]

Great result, lovely clear structure without the help of a Ha filter.

Mike.

[JCJC]

Thanks Brendan and Mike,

Catanonia, yours is a great image the time spent really shows. You used to use a 350D didn't you? The difference in noise must make for a smoother result, if I get another hour or two tomorrow (good forecast) then a comparison should be interesting.

Jordan.

[Catanonia]

Jordan, I am using an EOS1000 now and yes, i used to have a modded 350.

I definately noticed the noise and more the amp glow I got with the 350.

If you are looking to upgrade, then a 450 or 1000 would be perfect for you.

[Beulah]

That's a fabulous capture, JCJC! I've been studying this familiar object for a few days now.

[JCJC]

Thanks Sam.

Catanonia, I think an upgrade is a fair way away, only just got the modded 350D really.

The 450D and 1000D are producing fine results though. Sometime in the future hopefully.

Cheers,

Jordan

[JCJC]

Tried to add more to this yesterday, but by the time it was up high enough for me my ST80 guidescope had frozen.

Really must get that other dew heater made up...

[JCJC]

Haven't added more to this but reprocessed and came out with this:

Tried to sort of follow this tutorial Luminance Corrected LRGB but the L layers came from duplicating the RGB and desaturating. Seemed to allow me to sharpen a lot more without generating much more colour noise.

Thanks for looking,

Jordan

[Beyond_Vision]

Thats looking really good with plenty of detail and good star colour

Regards

Kevin

[RobH]

I much prefer the first version Jordan. It's really natural looking and the colour is bang-on....very nice rich reds and good stars.

On the second version, you've pushed it too far, and the image has become noisy.

There is really only so far an image can be pushed without running into noise issues, and the only real way around these issues is to get more subs and improve the signal to noise ratio.

The first result with only 7 subs is really good, but you should be looking at a very minimum of 25-30(only 3 hours or so) in order to really start to make an image work well, and really 50 or so is great if you can get them. Anything more will improve the image, but only very slowly, and after 90 or 100 subs, there is little gain to be had from adding more.

With the results you have, I would suggest grabbing some more data to add to this, as it has the makings of a very fine image.

Cheers

Rob

[JCJC]

Thank you Rob, it's great to get honest feedback. It's very, very helpful.

I hopefully will, eventually, get time to add more to this. It definitely helps to leave an image and come back to it a day later, you soon realise the colour is wrong, you've pushed it too hard or just overdone it.

Thank you Kevin.

Cheers,

Jordan.