Hi guys,
Here is my attempt on the Rosette Nebula.

DSI-2 pro on WO ZenithStar 66.
20 subs@ 5min for each Ha, SII and OIII.
Ha Lum, Ha-R, OIII-G, SII-B.

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Wow Pablo - that's awesome! It looks so three dimensional. You need to post that on a larger site. Congradulations!
Mike

Thank you Mike
As always I'm never sure which colors look better. Good thing NB colored pics are false color anyway

Which one do you like better? the reddish one or this one?

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Hey Pablo -

These are both great images. Overall, I like the second one better. The first one looks a bit oversaturated to me, and the highlights are blown out a bit too much to see all the details. However, I do like the red color in the first one as well. Hmm - tough choice. Good job!

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Dave - Morrow, AR

Hi Dave,
My thoughts exactly. I like better the second one too. I'm just playing with the different combinations. In fact I'll post later an option for M42 where I map OIII to both green and blue, and makes it look more familiar.

Best,
Pablo

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Pablo - I like the second one, too. I cannot express fully how impressed I am with the quality of your work, particularly with the equipment you are using!
When are you going to set up a class on astophotography (I talkin' about a full blown cash project)?
Mike

I agree. Do some teaching - I'll be there.
Mike

I will be VERY interested in seeing that! I also agree with the two Mikes - I would LOVE to see you teach a class on your techniques.

Perhaps sometime this spring?

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Dave - Morrow, AR

Mike and Mike and Dave:

I am extremely flattered!!! Really!
Dave, I just posted the M42 with "familiar" colors in the other thread. Now I'll try to make one of the Rosette.
I'd love to give a talk about imaging for sure. I don't think I am capable of teaching but rather describing the process I run through to get an image.

Thanks a lot for the comments!
Pablo

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Now the Rosette in synthetic RGB. This one I like a lot.
Pablo

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Pablo,
I like your last image as well - but not as well as the second. The false color tells the viewer that is was taken with additional filtering that describes something of the images' chemical composition. However, the most important aspect of this photo has to be the fine focus that allowed such fine detail and depth of view. I've taken the liberty to save your second photo as my desktop background and added it as a power point slide for a presentation to my church group (if you don't object).
Mike

Dave, I'm sorry to hear about the cataracts. I really hope there is some procedure you could get rid of them in the near future.
Mike, again I'm flattered, please use them however you please!
And here is another combination. This time using the Hubble's palette. The color are totally surreal:

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR

Pablo. When you combine do you use add, average or median? In CcdSoftV5 which I use these are the 3 ways to combine images. I guess other programs might have other ways or terms.
Mike

Mike, by combine you mean the color layers? In this case I combine them in Photoshop. There are two ways of doing that. Either you have all three grayscale open at the same time and then in channels you select Merge Channels and select RGB, or for more control you can follow the guidelines described here:
http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/stepbystep.html
This method allows to play around with levels, curves and even the color you assign to each layer.
Once you're happy with the colors you can then duplicate the image (so that you can keep the original for other tests) flatten it (Layers>Flatten Image) and apply the Noise and Blur I was talking about earlier.

Also, if you want to have smaller stars, you can use Select>Color Range, click on a bright star and move the Fuzziness level until you get most stars but nothing else. Then Select>Modify>Expand and choose 2-4 pixels.
Then apply Noise>Dust and Scratches somewhere around 5-10 pixels and the stars will almost disappear.
This is OK, because it is only the color layer, all detail is supposed to be carried by the Luminance. In any case it is easier to reduce the stars before applying the Noise and Blur.

Only after that, you apply the luminance layer. If in RGB you simply add the layer and change it to Luminosity or if in Lab Color you copy it to the Lightness channel.

Pablo

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Pablo - Fayetteville, AR