Some Winter favourites

Getting better all the time John.
Rosette looks good.

I think a quick few tweaks in PS and these will look awesome.

Hi Keith

To use the CGE polar alignment.
1) Set up the scope as close to north as you can visually. This is important as the CGE has a very limited range of adjustment in azimuth.
2) do a two star align with two extra calibarion stars (4 in total -well seperated east and west)
3) Go to the menu. Select utilities. Select polar align/ do polar align. The scope will slew to where it thinks polaris should be. Put the hand controller away so it cannot be used.
3) Loosen the azimuth knobs and the two hex screws on the altitude axis and using the hex key adjust the axis until polaris is centered in the field of view of say a medium power eyepiece.
4) When centered press enter on the hand controller. The mount is now polar aligned. Tighten all the knobs !!
5) Redo the 3 or 4 star align calibration and you should be ready to go.

John

Thanks John, i'll try that !

Keith.

I stacked some 3 minute frames to the 5 minute ones in my M45 picture that I had taken the previous night to give a 1hr 25 minute capture in total. It has teased out a bit more of the nebula and is a little less grainy. The bottom of the picture is bit clipped due to a mismatch in the framing between the 3 and 5 minute exposures. I think it looks better though.

farm3.static.flickr.com/2715/4262033248_b613e7beee_b.jpg

Definitely looks better John, it's a lot cleaner with less noise. I think the detail in the nebulas is more discernable also.

Keith.

Hello Mr OMahony,

I'm very proud of you :>) It's great to see you upping your exposure times plus I can see the difference in the images well done.

Let's move onto step 2. Open up the Tiff in photoshop and press CTRL/ L. Now with levels open press CTRL 123 and you'll see the levels change between Red,Green & Blue. By flicking through the RGB you will see the difference in the color balance. The black point which is on the left should be all the same in a straight line. if they are not the same. select curves OR press CTRL M which will bring up curves, then press CTRL 123 to flick through the individual channels RGB and make a curves adjustment to the black point.

Once this is complete press CTRL L for Levels the see in the black points are equal in RGB. Once this is done It's time to adjust the white point which is on the right side of levels this will help with the background color. If the background color is too strong in red,green or blue go to image/adjustments/color balance or just press CTRL B

If the image is too strong in blue make the appropriate adjustment to the Blue and so on in Red and green. till the back round color balance looks right. hope this helps you a bit. It would be a lot easer to show you rather than trying to explain it through a laptop.

Ps. If I don't see you before you head down under I wish you the very best of luck. On an up note at least I'll be able to visit my new uncle John during the Irish summers months for some imaging WOOHOO!!!!!!

Carl.