Messier 108

Maiden image from the observatory. Still having problems with the guiding, so quite a lot of post processing correction. I'm undecided whether the gradient correction has darken the background too much.

Capture date: 

2015-02-05T00:00:00
2015-02-06T00:00:00

Location: 

  • Southborough, Kent

Imaging Camera: 

  • SBIG ST8300M

Guiding camera: 

  • Starlight Express Lodestar

Guiding Software: 

  • PHDGuiding 2

Capture Software: 

  • AstroArt V5

Processing Software: 

  • AstroArt V5
  • MaxIm DL 5
  • Photoshop CS4

Supporting software: 

  • EQASCOM

Filters: 

  • Blue
  • Green
  • Red

Light frames: 

10 X RGB x 600s

Mount: 

  • Skywatcher EQ6 pro

is an image of: 

Ambient Temperature(C): 

-2

Dark frames: 

20 x RBG

Flat frames: 

20 x 1.5

Imaging telescope: 

  • William Optics FLT 110 with WO AFR-IV @F5.6

Guiding telescope: 

  • Bresser 70

Astronmical objects in image: 

  • m108
  • Galaxy

Workflow: 

Merge align and colour balance in AA5
Scale and stretch RGB AA5
Correct stars
Correct gradient in in MaxIm DL
Scale and stretch in PS a touch more then crop

middlelayer hide all mask + soft light (highlight dark parts)
brush 10 px flow + opacity 15% = work on flame detail
gaussien blur mask 30px

duplicate layer
unsharp filter 15 pixels (small features)
Hide all mask
gaussien blur mask 30px
adjust opacity to taste and improve blending
flatten image