Despite the very short nights I wanted to make a first light for the Takahashi Reducer on the FSQ85. With 325 mm focal range at F3.8, an H-alpha region was found. I chose a rather rare object in the Cygnus complex. Originally planned as a Hubble palette, I had to realize that there is unfortunately almost no O[III] available.

Due to missing O[III] I saddled on Bicolor. Besides H-alpha, the good S[II] signal served as the second and third color. This resulted in a beautiful depth effect, but somehow everything seemed to me too monochrome. In the last two consecutive nights, I therefore exposed RGB subframes, on the one hand for the star colors, on the other hand for the admixture into the overall picture, in order to retain a natural look.

Here the RGB raw image:

And here the Halpha version:

At last the S[II]:

Image processing was initially carried out as pure bicolor image with H-alpha as luminance. Then I took the RGB and performed the usual raw processing in Pixinsight. So background neutralisation, color saturation, nois reduction, etc. Both image versions I then combined with about 70% Bicolor to 30% RGB. The resulting new raw version was fine tuned until I was satisfied with the final image. The end result can be seen here ...

Resumee of the first light:

To the Reducer at the FSQ85 I can say that it basically works with me, but the effort for round stars is already extremely high. I have still focused manually on the subframes and individual filters with this picture, because I had not trained Focusmax yet. The exact and optimal focus point is indispensable for round stars. Unfortunately, you can not read this easily from the FWHM value anymore. So only the Trial and Error method remained - so focus, expose, look at stars, focus a little further, expose, look at stars, and then, if necessary, turn the focus direction ... until it fits. As soon as I have time I will test the procedure with Fokusmax and hope that it then goes faster. Filter change without re-focusing is impossible with the Reducer.