different view of M20 and M21

Been doing some tinkering/experimentin​g with binning RGB subs in PixInsight and M20 was in the right area. Near full moon and shot from home. Thought I'd add some interest by blending in some Ha. Don't recall seeing a similar view with all the Ha in the background here. Wasn't sure whether to post this, but thought it might be of interest to someone.

Any critique appreciated. I'm not sure of the colour balance.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/troypiggo/77167​37252/

Ok , you do great work and i love seeing your images , you certainly throw a twist into things at a time with an eye of beauty . My first impressions are WOW , Great shot !! And by all means it is , but i'm just not sure how to handle that reddish BG . My thoughts are wondering what is true RGB on the BG . Could it fact be red or am i just wanting to believe that through your art of PP did it just come out that way ?? Stars do look a slight lean toward Cyan tho and with that i'll just leave it at that and let others WOW over this image cause it is , .... WOW !!

wow, this is spectacular!

There sure is a lot of Ha in the region. I like how it puts M20 into some context, so instead of being a blob of nebulosity out in the middle of nowhere, it's more of a patch of a larger cloud that has a light source.
Very nice. Could we tempt you to go wider or do a mosaic ?

Celestron wrote in post #14816717
Ok , you do great work and i love seeing your images , you certainly throw a twist into things at a time with an eye of beauty . My first impressions are WOW , Great shot !! And by all means it is , but i'm just not sure how to handle that reddish BG . My thoughts are wondering what is true RGB on the BG . Could it fact be red or am i just wanting to believe that through your art of PP did it just come out that way ?? Stars do look a slight lean toward Cyan tho and with that i'll just leave it at that and let others WOW over this image cause it is , .... WOW !!

Thanks Ron. This is exactly the sort of critique I'm after and appreciate.

This isn't just an RGB or LRGB shot, I blended Ha narrowband data into the Red. If you look at the monochrome Ha shot, the red you see in the bg is truly there as Ha nebulosity. Actually it's quite delicate and interesting - I'll post the shot when I get a chance if you like.

And that's my dilemma. I know the Ha is there, but I suspect I gave it too much strength compared to what we normally see in shots of this region, so when we (me incl) look at it, the bg looks too red because I have a preconception of what it should look like.

There are some pretty interesting threads on the PixInsight forum about how to represent the data we get. What is white? Even just a straight RGB image isn't what it looks like when we view through a telescope with our eyes instead of a camera. Throw in some near infrared narrowband data, and now things are just arbitrary.

I'll post the straight LRGB image too when I get a chance. I actually liked it better.

So I totally agree with you. And on the cyan stars I see too. Will try to correct them.

rick_reno wrote in post #14816935
wow, this is spectacular!

Thanks mate Glad you liked it.

SteveInNZ wrote in post #14817636
There sure is a lot of Ha in the region. I like how it puts M20 into some context, so instead of being a blob of nebulosity out in the middle of nowhere, it's more of a patch of a larger cloud that has a light source.
Very nice. Could we tempt you to go wider or do a mosaic ?

I could be tempted with M8 and NGC6559 nearby

I'd like to see the monochrome Ha shot.

Very nice picture ! And yes this region is riddled with Ha nebulosity, pretty hard to show how it is really, and I think that your picture is very close to what it looks like

I just bought PixInsight, and all I can say is that this program is really powerfull, once you know what you're doing ( which I don't ). I'm learning though

Thanks mate. Yes, big and steep learning curve with PI, but rewarding.

Here's the Ha filter shot to show the nebulosity in the region.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/troypiggo/77210​28300/

Very nice.

Troy , since you have Image Editing OK i played with it in PS and Topaz Adjust and brought out the nebulosity some . I just wanted to show it to you and if you want i can delete it no problem . But seems thee is quite a bit of nebulosity in that region .

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

No worries, mate. Sure does look like a lot more there. Hmmm - must add more data, must add more data...

troypiggo wrote in post #14819452
No worries, mate. Sure does look like a lot more there. Hmmm - must add more data, must add more data...

When i look at all the images at APOD on M20 i always have that same feel of "is that really for real or not" I do believe there is tons of data to be captured . This is the only image of M20 i have ever seen where the blue nebulae actually surrounds M20 and when i look closer at the copy i posted of your image i can see that expansion of blue nebulsity around M20 . So i do believe once you get enough data on the Ha image it will come together for the first original image and it will blow all of us away !!

http://apod.nasa.gov/a​pod/ap050526.html

If I understand you correctly, you're referring to the blue reflection nebulosity surrounding M20?

(M21 is actually the open cluster of stars lower right of M20)

I will have trouble getting that blue reflection nebula surrounding M20 from here at home. Especially considering I took this shot near full moon (the moon was in the same quadrant of the sky at the time!) I suspect I'd need a dark site to achieve that.

The Ha is fine as narrowband filters can punch through the light pollution here, but reflection nebulae really require darker sites.

I'm off to Queensland Astrofest next week. It goes from this Friday but I can only afford time to go 3 nights, so choose the We/Th/Fr of the final week closest to new moon Probably won't be doubling up on targets, so won't be adding to this shot there. Want to do some challenging projects

troypiggo wrote in post #14822191
If I understand you correctly, you're referring to the blue reflection nebulosity surrounding M20?

(M21 is actually the open cluster of stars lower right of M20)

I will have trouble getting that blue reflection nebula surrounding M20 from here at home. Especially considering I took this shot near full moon (the moon was in the same quadrant of the sky at the time!) I suspect I'd need a dark site to achieve that.

The Ha is fine as narrowband filters can punch through the light pollution here, but reflection nebulae really require darker sites.

I'm off to Queensland Astrofest next week. It goes from this Friday but I can only afford time to go 3 nights, so choose the We/Th/Fr of the final week closest to new moon Probably won't be doubling up on targets, so won't be adding to this shot there. Want to do some challenging projects

Correct i'm am talkling about the blue nebulosity around M20 . And good luck on other projects . Look forward to seeing more from you . If you get a chance even if you don't image M20 try getting a good look at M20 up close in a HP EP . See if you can make out the dark divisions in the center . That is really something to see in dark skies , you wont regret it for sure ! BTW i corrected my statement above about the blue nebulsity . Sorry bout that .

Wow is right! Even the B&W is a Wow'er too, really shows depth in the star cluster.