Cocoon Nebula IC5146, 17 to 22 August 2015, Manche, France

[The Thing]

Latest effort from France. Now the nights are getting longer it's starting to get good for imaging. Last night (22nd) was very clear, saw several satellites and three Perseids and a sporadic. Milky Way was gorgeously detailed. Had to be careful not to fall down my pier hole. Galavanised tube to form the peir and concrete to fill it are here so it won't be a hole much longer

Canon 1000D (modded) with no light pollution filter, 55 subs x 60s @ ISO 800 using Meade LX90 8" UHTC, Baader Alan Gee II Telecompressor (f6, fl1255mm), OAG with QHY5L-IIm camera and PHD 2.5, HEQ5 Pro Belt Modded. Guiding was 1.07 Arcsec RMS most of the time.

[Fay]

That is really good Duncan, 60 sec subs, that is great!!!!

[The Thing]

That is really good Duncan, 60 sec subs, that is great!!!!

Oops, must get a new keyboard - it was the usual 300s (5mins in old money). 3.5hours worth of data.

[MarkS]

Lovely colours and nicely processed! 

However, I suspect you could stretch just a little more out of that image and make the dark lane begin to appear. It's worth a try!

Mark

[Carole]

Nice cocoon Duncan.  Are you going to build an obsy around your pier?

Carole

[The Thing]

Nice cocoon Duncan.  Are you going to build an obsy around your pier?

Carole

Yes is the short answer. I'll start a thread when I have a bit more progress but the weather is against me just now

[RobertM]

Excellent that Duncan, must be nice not having to use an LP filter.

Robert

[The Thing]

Excellent that Duncan, must be nice not having to use an LP filter.

Robert

Well I thought I would be brave and give it a bash, Marks suggestion really (as in 'I'm suprised you use an LP filter where you are'). There might be one on AstroBuySell shortly!

[RobertM]

Excellent that Duncan, must be nice not having to use an LP filter.

Robert

Well I thought I would be brave and give it a bash, Marks suggestion really (as in 'I'm suprised you use an LP filter where you are'). There might be one on AstroBuySell shortly!

I'm always harping on about it too.  A bit like using a CLS filter at DSC... Why throw away all those nice photons and needlessly compromising your image.

Robert

[Carole]

I notice there are a couple of gradients in the image Duncan, have you got gradient exterminator?  I just tried it and it response well to that.

Carole

[The Thing]

Exactly the same data processed in IRIS with mask based gradient removal. Much happier with this.

[JohnP]

Looks a lot better.. First image is a 'Tad too blue' the Iris version looks a 'Tad too green' - might be my monitor though...

I'm liking it though & ranks as one of your best images to date..

John

PS - Hope all is going well with the build & you haven't got the torrential downpours currently hitting the SE..

[The Thing]

I've now messed around with the IRIS image in StarTools and I think it's rather nice, I've even shrunk the stars using the Magic function. But I think another showing yet another reprocess here is toooo much.

[Carole]

It's got rid of the gradients well.  Also the dark nebula shows up better.  Altogether a better process, though I do confess I prefer the pretty pink of the first cocoon, but then I am a girl and like pretty colours.    

To be honest I think showing what improvement can be made to the same data is surely educational for those just starting out and we have got a few potential new people wanting to start imaging if my imaging session is anything to go by.  So long as there aren't too many versions. 

Carole

[Fay]

I like the star colours of the first one