CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
Its ironical that the pic is highly underexposed, so the core region is unsaturated in the 12 bit RAW range. Then stacking a large number of images (around 80), the signal of the outer nebula region is high enough so that the Highlights function of Photoshop can bring it out, so I have the outer regions and central core both in control.
Just wondering why is there a tiny 'bud' next to a lot of stars in the picture? They look like multiple binaries...
[80% Steve, 20% Alfred] ------- Probability of Clear Skies = (Age of newest equipment in days) / [(Number of observers) * (Total Aperture of all telescopes present in mm)]
Nice observation Andrew. Its due to poor matching in the stacking due to small play in the T-ring resulting in the focal plane not flat. I cropped quite a bit of the image to remove those parts.