M45 wide field

[BlueAstra]

After having a go at NGC869, I turned the scope to M45. Here are 15x4m, Meade ED80 + TV 0.8FF + LPF + 1000d. Guided by the OAG on the C8 SCT. I then did a few longer exposures, but the clouds soon put a stop to that! Anyway, stacked in DSS plus random tweaking in PS.

[Jamie]

Lots of nebulosity and nicely framed too...

Well done...

[Beyond_Vision]

A reasonable amount of nebulosity has been picked up. I would recommend raising the black point on the blue channel as you have blue tint to the background.

Regards

Kevin

[BlueAstra]

I had a go at reprocessing in PS to remove some of the blue background, as suggested by BV. Here is the second go:

[Beyond_Vision]

Thats better . It's very tempting when processing something like M45 for the first time to up the blue channel. You should avoid trying to bias the image to one colour. If you use the levels function in photoshop or similar set the individual RGB channels black level to just before the histogram. This will balance the colours. There are golden stars mixed amongst M45 and if you get the balance right they should show.

Regards

Kevin

[ollypenrice]

Good and much improved. Maybe try a little lift on the green to subdue the magentas? Keep an eye on the top left hand part of the peak in levels and cut back so as to keep that point consistent in the R,G and B channels. I do this throughut the stretching process but I don't know how the LP filters throw you a curved ball. I don't need them here. Lucky boy!

Olly