February 2009 Astrophotography Contest Winner:
egdirhtec-Craig

Comet Lulin

This was a stack of 15-5min subs taken with the StarShoot Pro and a Stellarvue SV4 Super Apo Triplet (now renamed the 105), IDAS filter (I am now a true believer in and like you will never image without it) using an Atlas EQG mount and Starshoot Auto Guider. First I had to figure out how to stack comet pictures which I finally did using DeepSky Stacker and it worked great. I never had used the Comet function before. Then basically what I did is follow your tutorial using the Fits Liberator first to separate the color channels. After getting a working RGB I basically followed the Zone System by Ron Wodoski with numerous curves and levels adjustments, not sure how many, but it was a lot of small adjustment, probably 30 or so. When I finally decided to quit playing I did a final unsharp mask, converted to 8 bit and saved as a jpeg. And this is what I got. I didn't have to touch up any stars or anything like that. Getting my rig balanced made a huge difference in the stars.