Hi guys,
Here's my first attempt with narrowband filters.
Tech data:
Imaging: DSI-2 Pro cooled on a WO-ZenithStar 66mm.
Guiding: PHD guiding using a Philips SPC900NC webcam on a 70mm customized Meade refractor.
Mount: Meade LXD75.
Frames: Ha15 subs@5m, 15@1m and 15@15s.
SII:15@5m and 15@15s.
OIII: 15@5m, 15@1m and 15@15s.
Exposure: Envisage. Registered on DSS and postprocessed on PS CS3 using Hubble's palette (Ha-red, OIII-green, SII-blue).




Best,
Pablo

Pablo. I like this really crisp image. Hope to put this area on the chip soon myself. I am setting up my ST2000 antiblooming camera now. The ST10 camera has way too many problems with the bright stars and with the new autoguider now working (shouldn't say that) the weaker camera should bring out the faint detail. Do you have this image saved somewhere in a larger size?
Mike H.

Fantastic.................A real work of art.................

Hi Mike, something cool about narrowband filters is that the stars remain small even with long exposures. (Kind of make sense since only a tiny portion of the spectrum is passing through the filters). The DSI also gave horrible big stars with the meade RGB filters.
The picture size is just the size of the DSI chip, except for a couple pixels cropped after aligning.
I could make a bigger image by applying a 2x drizzle, but for that to work properly I would need at least twice the subs.

Thank you Leonard

BTW, the palette used was not Hubble's (SII-R, Ha-G, OIII-B ) but the CFHT (Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope).

Pablo

Here is M42 in RGB from the same data set.
This time the Red channel is obtained by mixing 100% Ha +33% of SII (both lie in the red part of the spectrum)
The green channel is OIII (which is green) and the blue one is synthetically obtained by mixing 100% of OIII and 33% of Ha. It's just crazy how much you can do with PhotoShop!

Pablo -

I like this second image in terms of color from an aesthetics standpoint, but there is much more detail in the first image. These narrowband filters and Photoshop processing give us so many choices, but it's too bad we can't see this well with our eyes. I appreciate you sharing the details of these with us, so imaging newbies like me can learn.

The older I get, the more I want to get into imaging vs observing, simply because with cataracts beginning to form in my old eyes, I can't see nearly as well as I used to. I used to really enjoy visual observing, but even with my 12.5", I don't see as well as I did 10 years ago with the 8" I had then.