Cederblad 214

Hi all:

The following images are of Cederblad 214, a relatively low surface brightness emission nebula in Cephus.

You might recall that I have been puzzled by the variation in jpeg presentation between my computer at work and my computer at home, when viewing images of dim objects. Astromarters Enrico Africa, Charles Hakes and others have offered excellent tips for making sure the colors of my high resolution 16 bit tiff images stay "right" when I convert to 8 bit jpegs. I think I have that part of the puzzle solved. Thanks guys!

I am still having black point issues though.

If you have a moment, take a look at the two images I’ve attached to the next posts. The first one looks nice on my calibrated monitor at home. This image is clearly and tragically black-point clipped at work, in other words the fainter nebulosity right up to the edge of the frame on the N, SW and W is gone and only the central nebulosity shows.

The second image has substantially boosted gamma (about 1.4) I also boosted the overall brightness a bit. At work this one looks like #1 does at home. At home this image is way too bright though!

If you guys could let me know which version is more aesthetically appealing on your monitors, that might help me figure out whether my home system is out of whack, or whether I should just quit looking at these on my work monitors.

Thanks for any input you might have! I’m heading up to the mountains this evening, but I will read all replies carefully on Sunday. Have a great New Years!

Jim

#1: This image of Cederblad 214 looks balanced to my eye at home, on a calibrated monitor, with faint nebulosity showing right up to the edge on the N, SW and W sides of the frame. At work this image is black-clipped and the faint peripheral nebulosity is gone.

Attached Image:

#2 : This image has had its brightness boosted. At work, this one looks like #1 does at home. At home, this one is too bright!

Attached Image:

I like #2. Wonderful! What was the equipment?

Jim,
Nice Cederblad. I like #2 better. Seems that I get the full impact of the dta. For image #1 I have to turn my monitor gamma way up. Even then the clipping is still evident.

Boy, my posted images must look pretty bright and out of whack for you at home.

I also prefer No 2 as it seems much deeper than No 1. Great image.

Frank

Thanks for the comments guys. I am going to re-process this image with a different monitor, and I will remember to embed the sRGB color profile. This has been a very helpful experiment. Stay tuned for a final version.

Thanks!

Jim

Hi all:

In response to all of your help, I have adjusted my monitor at home and learned to embed the sRGB color space in images for web posting. This version of Cederblad 214 looks pretty much the same at home and on my work monitors now! I am happy, and grateful for all of your input. I do notice that the image is noisy in full resolution. Time to take more subs of this faint object!

Full resolution is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Ceberblad%208bit.jpg

Thanks, Jim

Attached Image: