antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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So I spent tonight shooting Nebulas. First clear night in quite a while, but armed with my CPC 800, Nikon DSLR, and my hair dryer I was able to stay out til after Mars rose to end the evening (well morning by that point) with shots of it. Here is the first one I have processed from the evening. My first attempt at M16 ... yes I know the framing isnt fantastic but I had never actually seen it in a scope and couldnt see it with the 30s subs I was taking so I just kinda relied on the Go-To. It did pretty well I think.
Stack of 59 (took 60 but an airplane went right through the Nebula in one of them) 30 sec. subs on Alt-Az mount shooting prime focus with my Nikon DSLR and f/6.3 focal reducer, ISO 800. Stacked in Nebulosity, Processed in Photoshop CS2.
For my first try at this object I am more than pleased. What do you think?
EDIT: Link to the unprocessed TIFF File is a few lines down in my next comment, please post your processed results!
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
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Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
Edited by antimorris (10/15/09 11:36 AM)
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Jerry Lodriguss
Vendor
Reged: 07/19/08
Posts: 576
Loc: Voorhees, NJ
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Hi Anna,
Good job, great star colors!
Get an anti-dewer heating strip for the scope and save yourself some trouble...
Jerry
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A Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography
http://www.astropix.com
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scully1234
sage
Reged: 09/04/07
Posts: 309
Loc: Rush, NY
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Hey Anna !
Thats a great shot for 30 sec subs !
It also looks like there might be more in the picture that can be teased out with processing.
Do you have a place where you can post a link to your stacked TIFF file ?
MEDIAFIRE is one place that lets you upload large files for free.
There are lots of us here who love to play with images while we wait (and wait, and wait) for the clouds to go away !
Also, can you tell us what ISO your camera was set for when you took these exposures ?
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Astrophotographer ! Finally ! (thanks to everyone's help on CN)
My webpage = www.starsinmybackyard.com
Celestron C8 XLT on the CG-5GT mount
Meade 70mm AZ guide scope
Canon EOS 450D (xsi)
DSI color (guide cam)
Acer mini-laptop (for guiding and xsi tethered shooting)
Canon A530 point-n-shoot
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Footbag
sage
Reged: 04/13/09
Posts: 468
Loc: Scranton, PA
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Very nice shot! I'm glad to see someone showing the newest newbies that you can pull off some great stuff in alt-az.
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Adam
Celestron CPC 800, Celestron HD Wedge
Hyperion 17mm, Celestron 40mm Plossl, TMB 9mm
WO 66, SSAG
Modded Canon XS
Lackawanna Astronomical Society
My Gallery
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waassaabee
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/26/07
Posts: 2710
Loc: Central California Coast
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Very nice image, great color!! 
If you're on a wedge, you should be able to get some longer subs. Give 60 and 90 seconds a try next go round.
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Gary
34N 120W
-My kingdom for blue squares!-
WO Megrez 90FD/TV 0.8x FR/FF
AT8RC
mini Borg 50/Q-Guide/PHD
CGEM
Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader mod - o.o
My Friend Flickr
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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Thanks for all the kind words!
Gary. As I said, I was on just Alt-Az. I don't own a wedge.
I will post a link to the unprocessed tiff here in a few so yall can have a go. To answer the ISO question, I was shooting at ISO 800
EDIT: Here is the link to the TIFF File: http://www.mediafire.com/?gwtduk22zz2
Edited by antimorris (10/15/09 11:33 AM)
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justabob
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/05/07
Posts: 1685
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Hey Anna, great image and I bet better than anything you have seen through an eyepiece. Your hooked like the rest of us 
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http://www.pbase.com/rkn/astro&page=all
Vixen Sphinx SXW
Meade sn6
Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Hutech 1000d
Self modded 350d
ST8300c on order
DSI PRO II
Bob
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Mobius1
professor emeritus
Reged: 08/28/05
Posts: 700
Loc: Madison, WI / Gurnee, IL
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Beautiful! I've never even seen M16 show up on an image, much less through the eyepiece, and there's some great color there. I feel your pain with the hair dryer... my neighbors think I'm insane.
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Martin
William Optics 66SD
Orion 100ED
Orion 120-ST EQ
PST-Ha
Celestron CGE 1100
Canon Rebel XSI with Astronomik filters
DSI-IIC
Homemade spectroscope in progress...
Yerkes Observatory Volunteer
(24" Cass on weekends)
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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When I came in it looked like I had been out in a rain storm, it was crazy. Definitely moved the dew shield, and perhaps a cover for the rest of the equipment, up the needed list
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
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Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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waassaabee
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/26/07
Posts: 2710
Loc: Central California Coast
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Quote:
Gary. As I said, I was on just Alt-Az. I don't own a wedge.
My bad... I was reading someone elses equipment list... 
Regardless, nickatnight here on CN used to shoot 90 second subs on his CPC925 and got great results, but he's wedged now (and autoguiding). But his alt/az shots were great.
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Gary
34N 120W
-My kingdom for blue squares!-
WO Megrez 90FD/TV 0.8x FR/FF
AT8RC
mini Borg 50/Q-Guide/PHD
CGEM
Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader mod - o.o
My Friend Flickr
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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I live very near San Antonio, so light pollution tends to be awful. I can occasionally push my subs up to 46-60 seconds depending on how good I can get/keep the alignment, but I have found 30s to be a reliable time for my subs and saves me from having to check every other sub as I am shooting to make sure I dont have star trails. As it is, I tend to double check every 20-25 subs. I will eventually get a wedge, but I still have alot I can do with my Alt-Az setup and would like to push it as much as I can first.
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
---------------
Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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Here is M42 from last night as well. . . ISO 800, 60x30s subs. Same stacking and processing software as M16.
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
---------------
Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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Jeff in Austin
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 02/26/07
Posts: 801
Loc: TEXAS
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Hey that's a nice one! I don't recall ever seeing dust from an alt-az shot.
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There's nothing like having a supportive family, including Second Grader w/ scope, curious toddler, and lovely wife.
Supporter of Austin CSC, Austin CalSky.
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Nils_Lars
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/04/08
Posts: 3459
Loc: Santa Cruz Mountains , CA
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Those are very good shots Anna and your definitely making progress , well done.
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Erik
Orion Atlas Self Hypertuned (EQMOD)
Orion ED 80
Williams Optics VII reducer
Celestron 8" SCT
Orion Starshoot Autoguider
PHD guide
Canon 400D Hap Griffin Mod w/Baader filter
Astronomik clip-in LP filter and 12nm Ha
Stilleto CVF and Bahtinov mask
Tamron 75-300mm&28-80mm lenses
NexImage webcam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31986095@N05/
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davidc
sage
Reged: 11/24/05
Posts: 264
Loc: Mesa, Arizona
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Anna,
Great job of M16, the details and colors came thru really well, the trail from that airplane, thru the nebula, would have looked interesting if you left it in the stack. Oh well. Keep up the great work.
David
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13.1 Inch-F/4.8 Royce Conical Homebuilt Dob
8 Inch-F/5 Orion Dob
4 Inch Celestron Reflector Camping Scope
25mm Meade W/A Ep
13mm Orion Stratus Ep
8mm Orion Stratus Ep
2X Meade Barlow
Meade Cheshire/Sight Tube
East Valley Astronomy Club
Searching For Rainbows In The Dark
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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Noone wants to give my M16 a try? Here is the link again.
TIFF File: http://www.mediafire.com/?gwtduk22zz2
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
---------------
Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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justabob
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/05/07
Posts: 1685
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Quote:
Noone wants to give my M16 a try? Here is the link again.
TIFF File: http://www.mediafire.com/?gwtduk22zz2
I played with it a bit but really did no better than you did. Shotting flat frames would help with the dust bunnies and the gradients. Did you take darks and bias frames?
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http://www.pbase.com/rkn/astro&page=all
Vixen Sphinx SXW
Meade sn6
Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Hutech 1000d
Self modded 350d
ST8300c on order
DSI PRO II
Bob
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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Yes I added already stacked it with darks flats and biases
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
---------------
Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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Stardaug
professor emeritus
Reged: 08/03/08
Posts: 531
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Both images are really great! I never got results that good when I first started imaging alt-az, prime focus on my CPC 800. I'm impressed!
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"Keep looking up!"
Shawn / Ontario, Canada
Celestron CPC800 SCT w/XLT & GPS // Skywatcher Equinox 80ED F6.25 500mm APO // Canon Rebel 350XT unmodded // Milburn EQ Wedge (a Meade model modified to fit my CPC)
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mark Jimenez
sage
Reged: 01/08/07
Posts: 339
Loc: Atlanta GA.
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Anna, I tried to process your M16 stack, quite honestly, I couldnt do any better than your post. Great job!! You are progressing very quickly.
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Celestron ASGT
Astro Tech 8" f4 Newt
QHY8
Meade DSI pro
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dgpilot
super member
Reged: 09/25/09
Posts: 105
Loc: San Ramon, California
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Could you guys post some tips on how you process your images? All I see when I open the tiff file is light pollution, I'm not sure how you extracted M16 out of that, but great job!
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LXD75 8" SN f/4
Canon 50D, 350D (unmodded)
Orion ST80 Guidescope
Meade DSI II Pro
San Ramon, California 
My Astro Gallery
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Nils_Lars
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/04/08
Posts: 3459
Loc: Santa Cruz Mountains , CA
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Well im not sure what I did was any better then what you had but I took a shot at pushing as hard on your data as I could.
If I had to say what I did exactly I dont think I could remember because I kind of threw everything at it.
I understand where dgpilot is coming from because it was kind of a trick to even pull anything out of the light pollution so the fact that your pics look as good as they do means when you get things better set and start getting some solid data you are gonna rock your shots cause you have some real processing skills.
Ill see if I can list most of what I did for anyone that thinks it will help.
I ran it through Nebulosity to do a DDP which normally gives me almost a recognizable shot but this shot showed nothing.
Then to Photoshop CS2 where I set black points in levels in each channel then ran a bunch of curves which then started to show some detail but also a lot of noise.
I ran GradX like they recommend on there web site and croped it down a bit.
Then reset black points again in each channel and then using curves and ctrl click on the darkest points and brightest points and then where the pillars were starting to show last and using arrow keys to adjust I was able to pull some detail up and it left a lot of noise.
I then did a inverse mask as shown on the light buckets site with noise ninja to kill some of it but that also left a blotchy background.
I selected stars and desaturated a bit to lighten some color out and then channel mixed some blue back to red in the whole shot , then a final setting of the black point(I always leave some room till the end)
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Erik
Orion Atlas Self Hypertuned (EQMOD)
Orion ED 80
Williams Optics VII reducer
Celestron 8" SCT
Orion Starshoot Autoguider
PHD guide
Canon 400D Hap Griffin Mod w/Baader filter
Astronomik clip-in LP filter and 12nm Ha
Stilleto CVF and Bahtinov mask
Tamron 75-300mm&28-80mm lenses
NexImage webcam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31986095@N05/
Edited by Nils_Lars (10/17/09 09:34 PM)
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dgpilot
super member
Reged: 09/25/09
Posts: 105
Loc: San Ramon, California
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That's pretty incredible, thanks for the tips Erik. I have some images like that of M33 and Andromeda, archived away thinking they were victims of bad LP. I guess I'll have to dig them out and give them a shot!
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LXD75 8" SN f/4
Canon 50D, 350D (unmodded)
Orion ST80 Guidescope
Meade DSI II Pro
San Ramon, California
My Astro Gallery
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villaltame
member
Reged: 09/17/09
Posts: 36
Loc: Cartago, Costa Rica
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I second dgpilot's request.
I am very new to AP and when I opened the tiff file I couldn't pull any decent image out of it. I would like to learn how anti and Nils pulled it off.
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Meade LX90 8" ACF
Nikon D80
My astrophoto blog
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Grouptele
sage
Reged: 08/11/07
Posts: 304
Loc: Qcy, IL
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Very nice image, Anna. Another fine example of what can be done with an 8"SCT on alt-azth.
Victor
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C8-XLT, G5, AT66
EQ-G
Starshoot color CCD
Canon XS, HapMod
SPC900NC webcam
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antimorris
sage
Reged: 08/16/09
Posts: 245
Loc: San Antonio-ish, TX
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The processing I did was similar to what Nils did but not quite as many steps. I did it in a hurry cause I was leaving for vacation so I will probably re-process it once I get home to see what I get (I also didnt crop or flip it back to how it should be (obviously). I think I ran Grad-X first since I know that I get gradient from my DSLR and this helps get rid of most of it letting me stretch a little farther. I think I ran 8-10 renditions of curves, threw in a few levels to channel reset the black point. I also got alot of color blotching, but didnt have time to try to work on it (that is on the list of more processing to do). I get alot of LP in all of my shots since I am so close to San Antonio so I have to kinda be creative in my processing to help get rid of it. I do have the AstroTools plugin which I use for their "space noise reduction" and "deep space noise reduction" as well as "make stars smaller" ... they do have a LP removal action on there but I have found it really clips the black end of the spectrum so I dont use it. Once I get back home and reprocess I will put what I get on here (assuming it will be better).
I do hope to get up to the State Park at some point soon to get some dark sky shots, but I was happy to see anything on M16 through our LP and on an Alt-Az ..... how to see if I can find and shoot the Horsehead on an Alt-Az -- I doubt it, but cant hurt to try one night!
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Anna
CPC 800 XLT w/FeatherTouch micro-focuser
Orion EON 80ED
unmodded Nikon D40
Meade DSI II Pro with ATIK Filter Wheel & Outback Razorback Cooler
---------------
Morris Astronomy
My Astro Blog
"sic itur ad astra"
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Grouptele
sage
Reged: 08/11/07
Posts: 304
Loc: Qcy, IL
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Quote:
to see if I can find and shoot the Horsehead on an Alt-Az -- I doubt it, but cant hurt to try one night!
Depending on how bad your home light pollution is, your C8 should get the horsey. Attached is one of my early 07' captures of the same with a CPC800 on alt-azth from the home backyard. Dark skies will surely make it better!
Victor
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C8-XLT, G5, AT66
EQ-G
Starshoot color CCD
Canon XS, HapMod
SPC900NC webcam
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Nils_Lars
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/04/08
Posts: 3459
Loc: Santa Cruz Mountains , CA
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Noels actions are very helpful , even with his color blotch remover but sometimes they just make better in a trade off for something else getting wrecked.
I have found that all my processing that I struggled with in my first season really taught me a lot of tricks that helps me , I would never have been able to do what you did with processing so you are gonna be fine once you get some better data.
Dark skies are obviously the best thing but I would recommend a good LP filter for home shooting , I like my CLS clip-in for what it did for my Ha shooting before I got my camera modded but other people like the IDAS LPR-P2 which I think does a better job with blue targets.
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Erik
Orion Atlas Self Hypertuned (EQMOD)
Orion ED 80
Williams Optics VII reducer
Celestron 8" SCT
Orion Starshoot Autoguider
PHD guide
Canon 400D Hap Griffin Mod w/Baader filter
Astronomik clip-in LP filter and 12nm Ha
Stilleto CVF and Bahtinov mask
Tamron 75-300mm&28-80mm lenses
NexImage webcam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31986095@N05/
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