Leo Triplet

[Darth Takahashi]

Last night was great, clear all night so I lined up on the Leo Triplet and let my system run all night. The attached result is a quick processing of my data; however, I haven't had chance to do it justice since like most I have to work!!!

Red 36mins

Blue 36mins

Green 36mins

Lums 136 mins

All taken with my ST-10 and TOA130F @ approximately F5.6 (With reducer and 1 extender ring). When I have more time tonight I’ll reprocess the image since something has gone a miss with the flat fields. Not surprising really since this is the first time that I have ever used them. It also looks a lot darker on my works monitor!

The revision 1 verison was calibrated with MaxIm once I'd sorted my files out and then completely reprocessed with Pixinsight. This takes longer but is worth the effort. As you can see I have made no attempt to adjust the bloomed stars yet.

In fact, if anyone has a good technique for this I'd be more than interested to learn it. My current process is to work with masks.

[mattd]

Looking really good so far, looking forward to seeing the finished image

[RobH]

Good detail there Neil. The finished image should be a good one.

What problem are you having with your flats?

Rob

[Darth Takahashi]

Had another great night last night so here is the result;

29x 400sec Lums

14x 400sec RGB

And lots of image processes with Pixinsight, MaxIm and Photoshop etc...

I'm really struggling with the colour balance of the image. I tried a G@V calibration last night but the results I'm getting don't make sense.

R = 1.02

G = 1 (Normalising against Green)

B = 1.35?

My feeling is that both RED and GREEN are strong and that BLUE is weak but I would apply the following;

R = 0.9, G = 1, B = 1.23 etc...

Applying the G2V values leaves me with a YELLOW background. Any help or trip here would be appreciated.

Hi Rob,

I think my main problem is taking good flats, I'm trying to use the T shirt method, placing it over the scope at sunrise but the camera so blumming sensitive that I get 32k ADU to 42k ADU, sometime even saturated. When I do get good flats the processing seems to blur them. All the books I have read state that you don't need to align your flats and that makes sense since they are taken so quickly after each other but I'm not getting good results!!!

Anyway, one minor success was getting TightVNC and ChickenVNC to work together last night so that I could sit inside and monitor everything that was happening. I even took my computer to bed with me while the magic happened without my intervention outside. almost felt like I had an observatory!!!

And I still need a good anti-blooming routine, I feel that my current process is too heavy handed. Apologise for the colour balance, I'll try to improve it from home tonight with my Apple. These computer screens are all a bit hit and miss... where colour is concerned.

We have had RED, GREEN and MAGENTA - lets see what other colour casts I can produce.

[shaunster]

Ive got data on this and have a very similar result to yours, but my colour doesnt look right either!

[SlipperySquid]

That last image looks great on my screen Neil! Great detail with just a slight magenta cast? Nice image though ...really nice!

See ya Thursday

Matt.

[Darth Takahashi]

Ive got data on this and have a very similar result to yours, but my colour doesnt look right either!

This is what I have managed to product tonight with my Apple.

The Apple screens are a lot more consistent and that's what you need since we have two problems as celestial imagers.

1. getting the correct colour balance for the data we collect?

[Darth Takahashi]

Ive got data on this and have a very similar result to yours, but my colour doesnt look right either!

This is what I have managed to product tonight with my Apple.

The Apple screens are a lot more consistent and that's what you need since we have two problems as celestial imagers.

1. getting the correct colour balance for the data we collect?

- Which is disturbed by the optical system, filters and atmosphere

2. Our computer equipment / screens can influence the final results.

Well I'm getting closer but I need more data, perhaps some H Alpha would help tighten things up a bit more, etc... Here is the final version and most natural for now.

If SGL6 is cloudy I need lots of talks on imaging and image manipulation techniques.