IC 5146 (cocoon)

[Shibby]

I'm not particularly proud of this image, I wasn't sure whether to post it or not...

But I'm fairly proud of the processing, because I thought the full moon glow had eradicated all signal, until my last effort when I finally managed to drag some detail out of it (albeit very noisy). The nebula was barely even showing up until the 3rd application of curves/levels!

30x2mins unguided ISO800, 25 darks.

To show you what I mean, here is the DSS output after the 1st curves adjustment!

[Deneb]

Did you take any flats & bias with this image ?

Maybe this is Better..

Nadeem.

[moocher]

Don't be so hard on yourself!!! Needs more exposure that's it. Is the camera modded?

Alan

[Euan]

Ah the old pinky sky, don't you just love it

Fantastic result for so much light pollution

[ollypenrice]

The potential here is huge. All you need is more signal on a moonless night and you will have a winner. It's all there, though what are the dark patches?

Olly

[George]

Looks like dirt on the sensor....flats will take care of that.

[Shibby]

Thanks for the comments, yeah I guess it is encouraging - I will have to try again on a better night. I'm considering going out to a dark site next time too...

Yeah it's dust/dirt, which I haven't actually seen before. So either the sensor is getting dirtier or it's just down to the amount of stretching I've done to this image. Must get into the habit of taking flats.

[Tim]

Loads of potential

You mention first curves in DSS. Are you adjusting it with DSS? By its own admission, DSS is seriously lacking in the processing department, you'd be much better off importing the unaltered stacked image into a proper graphics program, there are free ones, but Photoshop is excellent, and Pixinsight also has dedicated astro based routines.

As Olly says though, with more signal this image could be a cracker, and you wouldn't have to push it so hard to get the results. Might be worth you looking at star layers too.

Nice going though

TJ

[Shibby]

TJ - Yeah sorry, I meant it's the output from DSS but the curve adjustment is indeed done in Photoshop. Star layers is something I haven't tried yet, I should because the stars have bloated quite a lot with my processing.

Nadeem, the colours are far better in your re-work. Only problem is it's exaggerated the background noise a bit, but that's probably only because I haven't removed it properly in the first place!

Alan - nope, it's unmodified. I perhaps would if it were my camera, but it's on long-term loan from a friend

[roundycat]

a moderately exposed DSO such as yours would take me three iterations of levels followed by, probably, at least three iterations of curves. That is just the start so I can see what is there so you have not done too bad.

Dennis