Nebula Madness

[Uranium235]

Last night was a good one (and a late one!), and Ive covered a couple of new targets as well as updating some exsisting ones. Also Im getting used to this post-processing lark now - edge preserving softening and unsharp mask are pretty useful tools (psp), I used this on M16 to great effect.

The guiding was 95% trouble free, especially now ive got the load down to a dainty 4kg but any sizeable mis-balance will still upset it (backlash).

Towards the end of the session I noticed M45 was at a reasonable height, so I managed to get an hour on that before cloud rolled in at 2.45am. Im quite happy to be seeing m45 again as that is one of the first things I took a photo of (too lame to show here), but this time round im tooled up and ready for it

The crescent nebula was tougher than expected, not sure if it was the seeing, my focus or whether i just didnt have quite enough data. I will catch up with it next time for another nibble.

Pelican Nebula (IC5070):

15x600s

Crescent Nebula (NGC6888):

10x600s

Eagle Nebula (M16):

14x600s

Bubble Nebula (NGC7635):

13x600s

The Pliades (M45):

6x600s

ED80, CCD CLS, 50mm finderguider, 1000d + lots of coffee and cigs

Thanks for looking

pelican_final_s.tif

crescent_crop3s.tif

M16_crop3s.tif

bubble_crop2s.tif

M45_crop1s.tif

[Uranium235]

Jpegs

[JonH]

Looks like you had a cracking night - great set of images.

[Sam]

Crikey, you've been busy! What a great set of images.

[msinclairinork]

Top notch!! Well done! A very sucessfull night then?!

Thanks for sharing

Michael

[Coolhandjo]

REally like the Pliades!

[Uranium235]

Thanks guys

This week we have been blessed with a few clear nights (especially Friday), so I had to make the most of it. I was totally amazed when i got 3 hours from the first battery... though in the end im kinda glad that the cloud turned up becuase I really needed sleep!

I might take another look at m16 because I think i might have gone in too hard on the stretch (looks a bit "pink"). Hmmm... i should have posted the unstretched tif so peeps could have a play for themselves. With M45 I was having a bit of trouble with a gradient, which I tried my best to remove.

Is there a way of deleting old photos youve posted? Theres probably a fair bit of stuff I dont need now.

[Uranium235]

Last stab at M16 processing - much smoother

Might apply the same effect to the pelican to see what happens.

[adamsp123]

A nice set of images, well done.

[Uranium235]

Thanks adam! Ive just done a quick reprocess on the Pelican using the same routine as for M16, except it was a little harder due to the fact there was less to get a handle on. Looks ok now (i think!).

Never thought of using smoothing/sharpening before, maybe because I thought that would be "cheating" - but it really does do a good job of beating down the noise created by stretching. So its something I will use a lot more from now on.

[RobH]

Lovely set of images, and obviously a very enjoyable session

Cheers

Rob