Heart Nebula Kelling Heath

[Carole]

My aim at Kelling was to spend 2 nights with the Atik383L and 2 nights with the DSLR:
a) To Compare results
b) Didn't want to spend the entire time using the Atik as it's new to me and didn't want to waste good skies dabbling.
c) If I got results with both to try to combine them.

Clouds conspired to allow me only 1 sub on the last night which was when I was using the Atik to capture the Heart Nebula, I did not realise what a huge object it was.

So here goes:
This is the sum total of 1 sub at 15mins - I am really amazed at what this camera can capture.
It had a reasonable amount of noise being only 1 sub and funnily enough I seemed to get a better result without calibration files, so this is light frame only

1 x 15mins (cooled to -10 degrees) Atik 383L Ha filter 7nm - ED80 NEQ6 captured in Artemis

[Carole]

The previous night:
DSLR 27 x 5mins 800 ISO (same kit as before captured in APT with dithering).

Note the Atik and DSLR are flipped over horizontally



I then aligned in Maxim, and combined in Photoshop CS3 to get a combi of HaRGB
Slight crop as I haven't quite worked out the rotational orientation of the 2 cameras yet.

[MarkS]

Very interesting result but expected.  The dedicated camera does an amazing job with the Ha.  Much cleaner than the Canon which has 9 times the total exposure.  The narrowband filter certainly helps the dedicated camera by cutting out all the light pollution - this will certainly have a big effect.  When imaging the Soul Nebula I found it was hardly brighter than the background light pollution.

The combination of your 2 images has worked quite well.  Although it is still noisy there is more detail in the combination than in either original.

You asked me about the Soul Nebula.  I think it is approx as bright as the Heart Nebula.  So you can see why I decided to take 10 hours of data - even at F2.8  !!

[Carole]

Thanks Mark, yes I agree it is still noisy, but if you recall this is only 1 Ha sub without calibration so I didn't expect too much from this, just pleased to get what I did.

My other two images hopefully will be less noisy as I got about 2 hours worth of Ha on each of them, but am still processing them (California neb and Flaming Star).

Carole

[JohnP]

Looks good Carole must be well haps with that. The new camera is looking really good. Looking forward to your other images.

John.

[RobertM]

Well the jpeg has killed the definition but as Mark has mentioned, the mono camera has caught so much more Ha data.  I think you're going to have to persevere with the 383 Carole, not only to get some decent imaging in but also to get used to the processing side too.

Robert

[Carole]

Thanks John, yes am feeling very pleased with the results this camera is producing so far.

Thanks also Robert, yes I know I have a lot to learn with the processing - completely different ball game, but hopefully onwards and up.  I think using LRGB will be better than the DSLR for colour but having just shelled out for the Atik, the filterwheel and the narrowband filters (which I thought were more important because of my location), I will have to manage with DSLR for colour until either I can save up for the 2" LRGB filters (can't believe how expensive they are), or a 2nd hand set comes up, plus I will have to buy another filter wheel as I only got a manual one which holds 4 filters. 

Yes Jpeg's a bugger for messing up definition.  I should try to post PNG - note to self.

Carole

[Mike]

Looking good but you still have those pink stars so the colour balance is off slightly.

[Carole]

Thanks Mike.  Yes not entirely happy with the colour, but I think combining Ha and DSLR is probably not the best way of doing it, but will have to do for now until I can save up for LRGB filters.

Carole