Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Centaurus (Cen)  ·  Contains:  HD100444  ·  HD100791  ·  HD101035  ·  HD101070  ·  HD101085  ·  HD101131  ·  HD101146  ·  HD101190  ·  HD101191  ·  HD101205  ·  HD101223  ·  HD101298  ·  HD101330  ·  HD101331  ·  HD101332  ·  HD101413  ·  HD101436  ·  HD101498  ·  HD101545  ·  HD101602  ·  HD101684  ·  HD101712  ·  HD101724  ·  HD101794  ·  HD101795  ·  HD101837  ·  HD101838  ·  HD101947  ·  HD101964  ·  HD101965  ·  And 10 more.
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Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst
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Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars

Revision title: Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst
Powered byPixInsight

Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars

Revision title: Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

HA 40 x 300s
OIII 40 x 300s
R 20 x 40s
G 20 x 40s
B 20 x 40s

Hy first HOO image with RGB stars. I'm on the early, very steep part of the learning curve so I had to learn how to do a number of things for the first time. Combining the stars with my starless image towards the end was particularly difficult and did not give me the result I was hoping for, so I need to learn how to do this better. The Starless image had significantly more nebulosity towards the 'tail end' but this got almost totally obscured when I added in the stars.  I used Pixinsight almost exclusively, so perhaps learning more Photoshop or Pixelmath is my next challenge ... 

One problem I did overcome was sorting out guiding, and in an unexpected way. I purchased a lightly used Avalon linear (Synscan version from 2014/2015) ) mount pre Covid, externally in excellent condition. However, I had not managed to consistently guide with it over the last year, no matter what I tried and that, after spending long hours troubleshooting everything from PHD, balance, wind, cable drag, differential flexure etc. guiding was erratic doing from good to very poor in an instant. This was contrary to my expectation from this mount and I was close to giving up on it when I saw an interesting post on Cloudy nights about the polyurethane belts of early models disintegrating. I opened the RA and Dec plates and was stunned to find that the yellow polyurethane belts on both axis were disintegrating, some quite far gone, literally thin threads remaining. I was relieved to have found a solution. Avalon sent me a new set of belts without any question and at no cost (for the belts) that were relatively easy to  instal. Guiding is now excellent and consistent. What a change in experience. Stars are round, all is good .  

Hope you enjoy. Comments welcome.

Best wishes and CS

Philip

Comments

Revisions

  • Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst
    Original
  • Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst
    C
  • Final
    Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst
    D

C

Title: Running Chicken Nebula - Reprocessed

Description: Revision of a recent image. I had difficulty showing the blue of the OIII with my previous image but managed it better this time around. Created a mask of the OIII and HA this time and could then selectively bring out the OIII colour. Refined the hue I liked in Photoshop. Star reintegration done in Photoshop for the first time. Perhaps overdone the star reduction but I wanted to show off the nebula better this time. Cheers, Philip

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D

Title: Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars

Description: Experimenting with orientation ...

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Running Chicken in HOO with RGB stars, Philip Herbst

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Southern Hemisphere Astro