March 27, 2010
Having been given “the day off” from looking after our new arrival, I have just spent the entire day doing astro related stuff… its been awesome 🙂
Anyway, one of the things on my to-do list was to spend to more time processing my Rosette data from a while back, taking on board the various comments that have been made about it. Just finished 4 hours of playing with this, and included the following improvements:
– better contrast in the rosette itself
– less “salmon pink”, more red
– removed the cyan halos aorund the stars in the left of the image
– added a tiny amount of the Ha into the blue channel (about 12% looked about right)
Also took on board some of the items covered at the SGL Imaging day, specifically the keeping color saturation without losing detail, and the Shadow/Highlight tool, plus managed to get a good star reduction on the image.
So, here we go….
Ha Data
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + Maxim
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 11×900s, Astronomnik 13nm Ha (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
RGB Data
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + Maxim
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 19×600s, Hutech IDAS LPR (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + PixInsight + Registar
(Click on image for larger version)
and for reference, this is what the first processing version looked like
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on Rosette, (HaR)GB, rework… a LOT of rework!
March 10, 2010
A few people have mentioned that there appear to be dark halos around the two galaxies in the M81/M82 image below:
They were saying that its all due to some selective processing I had done on the galaxies themselves. I would have kind of agreed with them, despite my selection of the galaxy cores was a lot closer to the core itself, and not WAAAY out in the dark bits. A couple of other people have suggested they can see the faint whisp of intergrated flux nebuloisty. No, I didnt know what that was either 🙂
UNP_IFNebula details at www.galaxyimages.com
Using the MW3 image from that page and registar to align my RGB image with it, it does appear that the slight difference in background brightness around the two galaxies (and it really is very very slight!, and may not be visible on some monitors if they are set too dark) does tie up well with the integrated flux in the MW3 image. I quickly knocked up this:
(Click on image for full size version)
And an APOD of the same area, showing all that background nebulosity (The M81 Galaxy Group Through the Integrated Flux Nebula, Credit & Copyright: Jordi Gallego). Click on image for larger version.
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on M81/M82 and Integrated Flux….
March 9, 2010
After sitting in the garage for most of the winter whilst the Borg was getting used all the time, the Skywatcher 190 MakNewt got to point its one near-perfect eye at a dark sky again on Sunday night.
After grabbing the RGB data for the Rosette early in the evening wit the Borg, I quickly swapped over the imaging side of the ADM side-by-side bar to the MakNewt, rebalanced, realigned, focused, and fired up CCD Commander to center up M81/M82.
I have forgotten how nice the images are with the MakNewt 🙂
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + MaximDL
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 30×300s, Hutech IDAS LPR (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CCD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker Post Process: PSCS2 + PixInsight
(Click on image for a MUCH larger version)
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on M81/M82, the 190 MakNewt finally gets some sky time!
March 8, 2010
Following on from my Ha Rosette a few days ago, I managed to grab some RGB data for it last night, and combined the two together.
Ha Data
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + Maxim
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 11×900s, Astronomnik 13nm Ha (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
RGB Data
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + Maxim
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 19×600s, Hutech IDAS LPR (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + PixInsight + Registar
This has been a really tricky one to process, ensuring that teh Ha data doesnt overwhelm the whole image, and yet still show the fainter Ha areas in the background. I am sure I`ll have another bash at processing this sometime, not quite 100% happy with the colour of the Ha areas.
(Click on the image for a larger version)
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on New Rosette Data, HaRGB combined
March 6, 2010
The skies cleared last night, they where a bit hazy but everything was very still, and the moon didnt come up until quite late. Orion is now already well past its best for me this year, I`ll have to wait until next winter again and hope for better luck.
So, I returned to one of my old favourites, the Rosette nebula
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + Maxim
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 11×900s, Astronomnik 13nm Ha (101 bias, 101 flats)
Orchestrated: CDD Commander
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + PixInsight
(Click on image for larger version)
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on Deep Rosette NGC 2237 in Ha
March 5, 2010
Snapped this one as a piggy back target while shooting something else (still working on that one!). Nice to see the new ball head I recently purchased is much more stable than the previous one. The last two subs had some streaking objects in them that took me a while to work out what they were… the roofline of a neighbours house!
4 x 900s, taken with a QHY8, Baader 35nm Ha filter, Nikkor 50mm f1.8 @ f/2.8, piggybacked on the ED80 guide scope.
(Click on image for larger but slightly noisy version)
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on Orion in Ha, Barnards Loop, Horsehead, Orion Neb, SH2-264
March 4, 2010
Well, its been a while since I was last outside looking at the sky. This is due to the birth of our son in January, which has meant that a few clear nights have been missed so that I can try to catch some (any!) sleep that I can. Things are getting a little better recently, so I am pretty sure that i`ll get out soon.
I promise no more baby pics, honestly!
Posted by Steve under Astronomy | Comments Off on Lack of spare time, due to new arrival :)
