My Best Astro shot of 2015

As it's so bright getting a good picture of the Orion Nebula is almost the astrophotography equivalent of shooting fish in a bucket, but even so I'm well pleased with this one.

M42, the Orion Nebula

.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2016 21:38:24

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2016 21:38:47

And rightly so

Rod

Did you sharpen it, Neil ..... unsharp mask for instance?

Yes, although 'multi scale contrast enhancement' made the biggest difference to this picture, it's related to what they use to make 'HD images'.

This is a bit of the image with more basic processing:

I use the L - RGB approach.

One set of the stacked data is processed to get the best colours (I used the classic hubble visible light photo as a guide), this was then slightly blurred which helps colour up any over exposed or dark patches and removes noise for the RGB (colour) layer.

On top of this goes a luminance (L) layer which is eventually converted to black and white and 'processed' to be as sharp yet noise-free as possible. I've invested in a program called Astra Image 4 which has lots of different sharpening tools (toys?) (unsharp mask, wavelet, deconvolution in various flavours).

In this case I had three luminance layers each one targeting a different area of the image - background, nebula and the intense core of the nebula. The background has little detail so needed less sharpening and can have more noise reduction, while the detailed core could be sharpened more without the noise becoming intrusive.

If it sounds complicated, it is! I have hugely benefited from advice from more experienced photographers, some of whose work is (literally) out of this world!

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2016 23:37:59

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2016 23:39:04

Ah ... that's what I was going to suggest since, with respect, it looked a trifle over-sharpened to me (easy to do if you are sharpening all layers). Hard to tell though with the size/resolution of the posted image - I couldn't get it to open into anything larger.

Don't you ever sleep?

Try right click - view image.

It's very hard to decide what is 'right'. I seem to end up with a great range of different versions of my best shots, so I sometimes pick the best three or four and then play with their opacity to blend them together.

Hi Neil

Can you give us some info on equipment used and exposure.

Cyril

Hello Cyril

Skywatcher 150PL on Eq3 mount, EQ5 tripod, home made tracking drive. Canon 450D astro modded at 30 seconds exposure 1600 ISO. Limted to 30 seconds because I hadn't got a timer remote.

If I get another chance I will use a range of exposures (shorter and longer- hopefully on a night with no moon.

Neil

I'm very surprised and delighted at your results bearing in mind there is still a certain amount of moon light. Can I assume that you are lucky enough to live in an area with very little light pollution. Bearing in mind one of our biggest problems these days is light pollution.

Cheers

Barry

That's not bad Neil.

Has to said that these days while digital cameras supposedly ease things for people who don't just take snap shots all type of photography including the sky eventually result in an extremely steep learning curve in the post processing area.

There are 2 treatments of the same image here in this thread on what is an excellent photographic forum especially if people want to learn. The tutorials are excellent. Not much astro though. Just crops up very occasionally.

**LINK**

John

-

Added - I've just joined the EQ3-2 club Neil. Came on an EQ5 tripod and bought used. I was surprised how stable it is but it wont replace my olde meade mount for heavy scopes. It looks to be fine with a 6" newtonian. Thanks for mentioning it.

Edited By Ajohnw on 03/01/2016 23:07:12

An old thread. But was looking through my pics on phone & found these 2 sent to me by a mate with a reflector telescope. He had just bought it & these are the 1st couple of shots he sent. No idea what the model is but it was rather expensive I think, weighs a lot & is quite big. I think the mirror is 12". Means nothing to me.

Steve.

Nice pictures!

The Apollo 15 landing site near Hadley Rille is about 1/3 up the right hand side of the closeup picture.

Neil

I wonder if he knew that when he took the pics. Will ask him next time I speak with him. I'll find out what equipment he has. I know he bought it & then built a large tripod to move it around his garden. I know he was struggling sorting out some sort of P.C connection . Think it is sat in the back of his garage now with his other projects. Regards

Steve.

Re. Moon images

This might be of interest: **LINK**

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gorgeous-new-map-moon-most-detailed-rendering-date-180974751/

MichaelG.

Infuriatingly difficult to get to the full resolution map! The links fail, but clicking the image brings up buttons for three scales full scale moon geology map but without the description.

I have used a previous edition by USGS that was very good.

This morning afternoon I've just finished creating a library of images of Messier Objects, 70 out of 110, so 40 to go, but I will probably end up rephotographing 20-30 to get consistent quality.

www.stubmandrel.co.uk/astronomy/3-messier-objects

Neil

Is this the one you want, Neil ?**LINK**

https://astropedia.astrogeology.usgs.gov/download/Moon/Geology/thumbs/Unified_Geologic_Map_of_The_Moon_200dpi.jpg

... or is there a better one ?

25.2 MB ... It took me several attempts but the server seems to have woken up now.

MichaelG.