My first SHO palette image with the Esprit, finally!
This project started with a fail right away. Data in H𝜶 collected during the first night was not usable because of a large vignette in one corner that seemed to be caused by an internal reflection. The moon was shining bright that night and I was not aware of this issue until the next day. I threw away 3 hours worth of data because of this issue.
When the weather was getting better after Christmas I immediately went for Oiii because of the ideal moon phase. Then I went for H𝜶 again and shot the missing Sii last (mostly during full moon again).
Processing was tough due to the overwhelming signal in H𝜶/green. After countless iterations I finally found a combination I was happy with. It involved fine-adjusting the stretch on all channels and trial & error with weights during LRGBCombination.
The RGB stars I took four days after the last Sii session.
In the end, I'm happy with the outcome. The H𝜶 channel was super strong and clean which allowed me to really push the data for luminance. Deconvolution was also super-effective this time clearing up most of the remaining blur. I never felt more confident zooming into an image before and pixel peeping all details. You can really dig in and enjoy all the amazing structures of this exceptional target.
Comments