This is my first image using this equipment combination. I haven't used my DSLR seriously for AP for a while, at least not with any decent results. This time, I put it on my recently acquired WO Z61 equipped with a 1x flattener. This is one of the first targets I decided to aim at. I'd never shot the CA neb before as I'd never owned anything with the appropriate focal length until now. It seemed like an excellent target for the FOV in Stellarium.
Naturally, the resulting integration was much noisier than I'm used to compared to my 2600MC, but I decided to move forward with it anyway, intending to lean heavily on noise reduction and cosmetic correction. I ended up doing CC during integration (WBPP) as well as a second round on the final image before exporting. I also used NXT in linear and non-linear stages. The final result is still a bit noisy with hot pixels if you pixel peep but otherwise turned out quite smooth.
I used my usual workflow for the most part but this time created a "narrowband" image using Bill's narrowband normalization Pixelmath (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpIOSSj4L5g) and blended that into the mix in PS in color mode. I also made another rendition using my usual, un-normalized Pixelmath and blended about 25% of that in using color mode. I let the original RGB color show through by about 25%. I feel the resulting color mixture is dynamic and attractive, integrating the best aspects of all three renditions. My thanks go out to Bill for his excellent Pixelmath.
All in all, not a bad final product from a DSLR. I'll probably continue to use this setup as my secondary rig until I purchase a mono camera and filters at which point I'll probably migrate my 2600MC to the smaller rig.
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