Camera Labs

Hi folks,

There was a brief hiatus last night after I'd finished capturing some subs of the Soul Nebula so while I waited for the Pleiades to come into view I grabbed 5 x 200 second subs in each of red, green and blue of the Double Cluster. Here's the web friendly size but a lot of detail gets lost so I urge those interested in doing so to click on the image to view the full-size version which nicely shows off the capabilities of my TEC 140 'scope and the DDM60 Pro mount which was operating, as always, unguided.

The Double Cluster (NGC 884 and NGC 869)

The image was cropped from a 4096 x 4096 pixel original which, while it showed a lot more stars around the cluster, didn't really add much to the party. NGC 884 is on the left and NGC 869 is on the right. You can read more about the Double Cluster here on Wikipedia.

I found it quite difficult to get a good look for this image, especially in its much reduced 1024 pixel wide version above, but in the end settled for a pretty severe colour boost together with the addition of some spikes around the brighter stars. Part of my reason for choosing a refractor was to avoid star spikes (diffraction patterns) around stars so it seems crazy in some ways to add them during post but in this case I think it lends a little more interest.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

Having had the wool pulled from over my eyes so far as retaining colour in brighter parts of an image while boosting the dimmer parts I'm looking back at some of my earlier data. Here's the difference:

The Double Cluster (NGC 884 and NGC 869)

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Wow, it looks a lot more defined, good job Bob

_________________
Gear: Canon SX20 IS, Canon Rebel T3i, Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Wishlist: Canon 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II
Visit me and leave me a comment in My Flickr

Beautiful!

_________________
Bodies: Canon EOS 550D w/ Magic Lantern
Lenses: Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX f/2.8, Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Accessories: YongNuo Speedlite YN-468 Flash, Neewer Macro LED Ring Light, Meike Battery Grip, YongNuo RF-602 Wireless Flash Trigger & Receiver YongNuo WR-128 Wireless Remote Control