IC5146 The Cocoon Nebula (first mono RGB attempt)

[Euan]

I've dabbled in narrowband, but now it's time to have a go at separate RGB imaging with the Atik 383L+. I don't have an LP filter so it's RGB only for the moment, with the Luminance made in PixInsight buy combining the three

I had some ridiculous gradients in this and it took me the best part of 3 hours today to get them sorted. I think this is due to the fact that the flats never really worked right, and also my green filter is slightly off centre in it's cell letting a bit too much light through on one side

They were registered and aligned in PixInsight which was a doodle, but after that it was pretty much the same process as I've done before with OSC cameras.

I've got an hour of Ha to look at as well, not sure how this is going to fit in

I'm quite happy with the result, but really need to figure out how to deal with gradients as part of the capture rather than process, it drives me nuts!!

I also need to find another host rather than Flickr, this is a big one and it limits it's size

Camera: Atik 383L+ Mono with 1.25" Baader RGB CCD Filters

Scope: Skywatcher Equinox 80 with Televue TRF-2008

Mount: EQ6 with EQMOD

Guiding: Orion ST80 with QHY5

Capture Software: CCD Commander, Maxim DL

Processing Software: Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight

Exposures: RGB 60:60:60 (15 min subs)

Dithering: 1 pixel per sub

Calibration: 20 x Darks, 20 x Bias, lots of flats that never worked!!

And just to show how bad the gradients were in the original stacked image:

And this is what PixInsight DBE pulled out after a 3104 point gradient map (and a lot of crunching later):

[Deneb]

A Wonderful Cocoon, I do like the various star colours especially when the image is saturated with loads of stars..

Nadeem

[teh_orph]

Wow, that's a lot of stars!

[adamsp123]

Lovely, brilliant first RGB image! something I have to get to grips with on my 383.

Combining Ha to RGB is something else I am interested in, maybe just add to the red channel?

[MartinB]

That's come out well Euan. Onwards and upwards with RGB.

[smulx]

Wow, that turned out great.

[Beyond_Vision]

What a great result Euan a real sea of stars. The colour looks really good too

Regards

Kevin

[MikeWilson]

As others have said; wow, that's a lot of stars! Billions and billions of little coloured specks. Like hundreds & thousands on an ice cream!

[Euan]

Thanks for the comments

Combining Ha to RGB is something else I am interested in, maybe just add to the red channel?

I have an hour of Ha to go with this and there are a few different ways to go about it. I will maybe just stack it with the red and see what happens

[daveb]

nice pic

[NickH]

Wonderful shot, is it cropped or what have you done with regard to the vignetting and the 1.25" filters? (or have you butted the filters up against the CCD?

[Euan]

Wonderful shot, is it cropped or what have you done with regard to the vignetting and the 1.25" filters? (or have you butted the filters up against the CCD?

This is a full frame shot, the vignetting isn't a problem at all using a SupaSlim as close as it can get, details here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-discussion/115735-atik-383l-1-25-filter-testing.html

[gary1968]

Thats a cracker Euan, the version you worked on at the weekend was nice, but thats soooooo much better.

Thanks for sharing

gary

[blinky]

Absolutely cracking image Euan - the version we saw at Kielder was good but this is outstanding!

[Shibby]

Really nice cocoon, stunning! I like the way the long subs have produced lots of spikes.

I also need to find another host rather than Flickr, this is a big one and it limits it's size

Let us know if you find somewhere. Photobucket is not much better

[Starflyer]

Stunning image Euan, a beautiful target well captured and processed.

[RobH]

Really cracking first RGB Euan, it positively sparkles off the screen at you

To blend Ha with red, try (in photoshop) adding the Ha as a layer on top of the red and setting the blend mode to 'lighten'.

Cheers

Rob

[russ]

Absolutely stunning. The star colours are amazing and really like the way the Cocoon sits in that impressive star field. Lovely image!!!!!

[Euan]

Thanks folks, I've pulled out a lot more of the gradients and updated the OP

I think most of the problems are down to the fact I did the Red subs before a pier flip, a lot of the gradients are symmetrical across the image

I'm amazed I got anything out of this, the original image is terrible