In addition to calibration tests, we also ran some test images for some well known objects. Images in various filters were obtained for M57, the Ring Nebula, M16, the Eagle Nebula, M17, the Horseshoe Nebula, and M27, the Dumbbell Nebula.

Acceptable images were obtained in the V,R, and B filters for all the nebulae, but only M27 had an acceptable C filter image. Therefore, regular RGB image processing with the program MaxIm was used to make color images of all nebulae execept M27, where we could use LRGB processing. In RGB processing, one takes an image in each of the red, green (visual or V filter), and blue filters, aligns the images and then combines them with a weight on each color to make a true color image. LRGB processing takes this one step further by adding the C filter into the mix to correct for the brightness that is lost under the other filters.

Please click the links below to see each image. Note that these images were processed on a laptop computer, so the color may not be quite correct in all instances, but will be adequate. The bar running through some images is a bad pixel row in the ccd camera that had yet to be corrected for initially, and were removed as much as possible during processing.

M57 and a larger M57 Here, in addition to color combination, the image has been cropped and resized, since the nebula takes up a rather small area of the ccd. The smaller image was not resized and is included for clarity purposes.
In order to improve the image more, a deconvolution routine could be used, but was not here.

M27 As stated, M57 was processed with LRGB, so it will be a bit sharper and brighter. The image here has also been cropped slightly, but not as much as M57, since M27 is larger on the ccd. The image has also been intentionally reddened a bit to get more detail appearing.

M17 This image was neither cropped nor resized, and is just a straight tri-color image.

M16 This image was also neither cropped nor resized. This image is also not the best of the run, since the point spread functions of the stars are a bit larger than is good.