ASTRO: Stephan's Quintet -- color added

With nothing but clouds and snow I started back through the hard drive
looking for things to process I'd overlooked. When I first took this
group I didn't have color skills or software to properly handle color so
only took the luminosity image. A year later I took color data on it
but found the image scale, rotation and distortions from my old Meade
focuser made matching the stars impossible. Not having software to do
this I gave up and forgot about it. What with all the clouds I decided
to try again. I broke the image up aligned the pieces then put it back
together again. Not perfect but better than I expected. That Meade
focuser sagged so the image plane wasn't squared up properly. The scale
of the image thus changed across the frame. The color was taken with
the current 3" focuser that doesn't sag. Hence the alignment problem.
I know of only one more image this is a problem with that I took new
data for (H-alpha for M82). It was far worse for the distortions and
seeing was really bad as well when the original data was taken
(especially the blue frames). I'm still struggling with it. May need a
reshoot.

But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Colour looks very good to me, as does the rest of the picture. I was always
to occupied by trying to get good luminance of this object that I never
managed to do colour.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
With nothing but clouds and snow I started back through the hard drive
looking for things to process I'd overlooked. When I first took this
group I didn't have color skills or software to properly handle color so
only took the luminosity image. A year later I took color data on it
but found the image scale, rotation and distortions from my old Meade
focuser made matching the stars impossible. Not having software to do
this I gave up and forgot about it. What with all the clouds I decided
to try again. I broke the image up aligned the pieces then put it back
together again. Not perfect but better than I expected. That Meade
focuser sagged so the image plane wasn't squared up properly. The scale
of the image thus changed across the frame. The color was taken with
the current 3" focuser that doesn't sag. Hence the alignment problem.
I know of only one more image this is a problem with that I took new
data for (H-alpha for M82). It was far worse for the distortions and
seeing was really bad as well when the original data was taken
(especially the blue frames). I'm still struggling with it. May need a
reshoot.

But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Colour looks very good to me, as does the rest of the picture. I was always
to occupied by trying to get good luminance of this object that I never
managed to do colour.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
With nothing but clouds and snow I started back through the hard drive
looking for things to process I'd overlooked. When I first took this
group I didn't have color skills or software to properly handle color so
only took the luminosity image. A year later I took color data on it
but found the image scale, rotation and distortions from my old Meade
focuser made matching the stars impossible. Not having software to do
this I gave up and forgot about it. What with all the clouds I decided
to try again. I broke the image up aligned the pieces then put it back
together again. Not perfect but better than I expected. That Meade
focuser sagged so the image plane wasn't squared up properly. The scale
of the image thus changed across the frame. The color was taken with
the current 3" focuser that doesn't sag. Hence the alignment problem.
I know of only one more image this is a problem with that I took new
data for (H-alpha for M82). It was far worse for the distortions and
seeing was really bad as well when the original data was taken
(especially the blue frames). I'm still struggling with it. May need a
reshoot.

But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

"Rick Johnson" wrote
....
......
But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.
.......

It certainly did Rick! That's a wonderful image!!

George N

looks great Rick

Rick Johnson wrote:
With nothing but clouds and snow I started back through the hard drive
looking for things to process I'd overlooked. When I first took this
group I didn't have color skills or software to properly handle color so
only took the luminosity image. A year later I took color data on it
but found the image scale, rotation and distortions from my old Meade
focuser made matching the stars impossible. Not having software to do
this I gave up and forgot about it. What with all the clouds I decided
to try again. I broke the image up aligned the pieces then put it back
together again. Not perfect but better than I expected. That Meade
focuser sagged so the image plane wasn't squared up properly. The scale
of the image thus changed across the frame. The color was taken with
the current 3" focuser that doesn't sag. Hence the alignment problem. I
know of only one more image this is a problem with that I took new data
for (H-alpha for M82). It was far worse for the distortions and seeing
was really bad as well when the original data was taken (especially the
blue frames). I'm still struggling with it. May need a reshoot.

But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


------------------------------------------------------------------------


--
John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

looks nice Rick

i swear that this year I will do this target!
and 7331 while in the area too!

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
With nothing but clouds and snow I started back through the hard drive
looking for things to process I'd overlooked. When I first took this
group I didn't have color skills or software to properly handle color so
only took the luminosity image. A year later I took color data on it
but found the image scale, rotation and distortions from my old Meade
focuser made matching the stars impossible. Not having software to do
this I gave up and forgot about it. What with all the clouds I decided
to try again. I broke the image up aligned the pieces then put it back
together again. Not perfect but better than I expected. That Meade
focuser sagged so the image plane wasn't squared up properly. The scale
of the image thus changed across the frame. The color was taken with
the current 3" focuser that doesn't sag. Hence the alignment problem.
I know of only one more image this is a problem with that I took new
data for (H-alpha for M82). It was far worse for the distortions and
seeing was really bad as well when the original data was taken
(especially the blue frames). I'm still struggling with it. May need a
reshoot.

But Stephan's quintet came out rather well so here it is.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".