Caldwell 9 - Cave Nebula

[Ivor]

I took this a few weeks ago and only now managed to process it now, I'm been trying to convert my processing to PI more and more but I still had to use PS to bring the dark and light areas. I found it hard to bring out the nebula without over saturating the stars and losing their colour, I need work on masks in PI.

Telescope: FLT110 F7
Camera: QHY8L
Mount: EQ6 PRo
Capture:  AstroArt 5 12 X 900s
Processed in PI & PS

[Ivor]

Looked at it on a different screen and I realised how dark it was so I have adjusted it.

[Carole]

The detail on the brighter image looks much better Ivor.  What filters were used?

Carole

[Ivor]

No filters it's the QHY8L which is an OSC.

[Carole]

Oh yes, didn't read the specs properly.  In that case I think it is a bit on the brown side and perhaps should be redder?

Carole

[RobertM]

Good start Ivor.  A little noisy - I think it'll need a few more subs at F/7 which will make it easier to process.

Robert

[The Thing]

Looks really interesting. Second one looks much better. I think this is something you will add extra data to over time and get more and more out of the image, a bit of a project.

[Ivor]

Thanks for the feedback I think you are right I'd normally do 20 subs, but never went back to this target and now it is too late.

[MarkS]

Looking good. It has good colour balance but  will need some more data to reduce the noise.  It's one of my favourite targets - it once got me an image of the month in S@N magazine.

Retaining star colour is all about how the initial stretch(es) is/are performed - rather than star masking.

Mark

[Ivor]

Retaining star colour is all about how the initial stretch(es) is/are performed - rather than star masking.

Mark

You are right I should have been clearer in my comment, I was trying to mask the correctly stretched stars from the nebula so I could work on it without impacting them. As I'm still learning PI I feel I'm using a club hammer rather than a paint brush at the moment.