M3 Image

Hi All. An image of M3 (crop) from last night is attached. Seeing was good, but transparency was moderate and light pollution bad, as always in Dublin. 36 x 1 Minute subs from a Panasonic GH1 at ISO 640, using a GSO 200 mm f/5 reflector with a 2.5x Barlow, on a CG5 mount, unguided, processed on a Mac using Nebulosity. The colour balance is not great and the stars are somewhat egg shaped, but I'm happy enough.

All comments criticisms and suggestions welcome. Thanks for looking.

Mike

Hi Mike,

First of all I'm going to say well done. The framing of the image is great you've identified the the problems that need to be addressed.The thing about astrophotography is no ones image is perfect, It's the the way you fix the problems and learn from them that count. One thing leave out the Barlow next time the results may surprise you.

Hi Mike,

Many would be proud of an image like that so well done. As Carl mentioned, losing the barlow will help a lot, the egg shaped stars will be less 'eggy' (Although they look fine to me). You could definitely do with dropping the green off a bit.

Good job!

Dave.

Thanks for the encouragement Gents. I will do a comparison shot without the Barlow, as soon as I get a nice clear night. Mike

No Problem Mike if you ever have any questions just shout away

It was a nice clear calm night in Dublin, so I revisited M3. I omitted the Barlow, as advised, and processed the results quite differently, using Nebulosity for the alignment, but Photoshop Elements with Noel Carboni's actions for the image enhancement. The result (19 x 60 second exposures) is much nicer. Thanks again for the helpful comments; there's still plenty of room for improvement, so further criticisms and suggestions are welcome. Mike.

www.flickr.com/photos/45468979@N04/5665427378/in/photostream