Lagoon and Trifid

I was glad to get some clear skies recently. I got about 1.45 hrs on the lagoon and the trifid with my 80mm and a .8x reducer/flattener, so 440mm F5.6. I was pretty pleased with the data, although after stacking I realized that hotpixel cleanup had hollowed out my stars. After I adjusted the settings it would no longer properly stack so I had to live with it. Oh well. It is what it is.
iso 1600 21x300 second exposures
T2i full spectrum
Barska Magnus 80mm apo with W.O. .8x apo reducer, 440mm F5.6

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …70374000@N08/13​883337309/

Felt like I over sharpened a bit, here is a redo

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …70374000@N08/13​884799837/

Great target and image. I have so much LP here I have a very small window to shoot them. I really like the FOV. I kind of like the 1st one better, maybe somewhere in the middle of the two. I know that all the stars in that area make it tough to process. Nice work!

Beautiful shots.

Wes did I read you right you stacked 21 300 second exposures? Can you elaborate on how you did this?

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #16872257
Great target and image. I have so much LP here I have a very small window to shoot them. I really like the FOV. I kind of like the 1st one better, maybe somewhere in the middle of the two. I know that all the stars in that area make it tough to process. Nice work!

Moe, I agree looks a little soft now LOL! I think I'm going to try stacking them and layer mask/paint back some of the sharpness from the first image. If you ever feel like driving to Alabama we have an awesome spot to go shoot at now.

DanThoman wrote in post #16872934
Beautiful shots.

Thank you Dan, lots of work went into this, I really appreciate it.

jimz66 wrote in post #16873632
Wes did I read you right you stacked 21 300 second exposures? Can you elaborate on how you did this?

Hey Jim, yes you read correctly. I used a german equatorial mount, ioptron zeq25 with an autoguiding camera to allow me to track the main telescope, the Barska Magnus 80mm, on this object for 1 hour and 45 minutes, or 21 x 300 second shots. I use a software capture program called BackYard EOS, which is basically the astronomy version of EOS utility to automate the exposures with the T2i. Then I used a program called deep sky stacker to stack the images and then I edited the output file in photoshop. Here is a link to deep sky stacker, it will make more sense out of the stacking process than I can explain properly http://deepskystacker.​free.fr/english/techni​cal.htm

calypsob wrote in post #16873755
If you ever feel like driving to Alabama we have an awesome spot to go shoot at now.

I may be heading down that way, but to go to a track day at Barber. Get out and ring the guts out of the R6 in a legal way for a change It's nice to not have to dodge gravel, rocks, trees, semi-trucks, bears, deer....and oh yeah cops.

Very nice work! I tend to like the first one better, but maybe somewhere in-between the two like you said. Great color and it looks like you spent more time processing than actual capture. Love the wide field of view!

Mo and I have Red zones to deal with and as of late, no clear skies to shoot. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Greg

NovaTJ wrote in post #16894750
Very nice work! I tend to like the first one better, but maybe somewhere in-between the two like you said. Great color and it looks like you spent more time processing than actual capture. Love the wide field of view!

Mo and I have Red zones to deal with and as of late, no clear skies to shoot. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Greg

Thanks Greg, you are correct, after working out the gremlins in the field and actually capturing the image, the hard part is processing the image. I still may redo this one but I was pretty happy with this capture. I did realize later on that I had the hot pixel reduction set too high in DSS, so the cores of my stars got hollowed out! So annoying. Oh well, I plan to add some Ha and oiii to this one also so we'll see how it goes.

Outstanding work Wes. The second one is on the money.