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Old 24-03-2015, 08:57 AM
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rcheshire (Rowland)
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Antares Rho Ophiuchus

This image was taken at the Snake Valley Camp last weekend. A very tight fit and mostly experimental. Two versions, subdued and contrasting?

The sub frames are a little under exposed and too few to really make things pop. A little StarTools magic (not the Magic module) teased out the detail, while doing a very good job on the noise.

Preprocessing in Pixinsight and post processing in StarTools, using the additional Luminance channel technique to allow further stretching of the colours.

The bias and dark frames are twelve months old and were taken with my regulated cooled Canon 1000D, at -5C. Pretty good consistency. The camera maintained -5C +/- 0.5C all night over the weekend.

Despite heavy dew both nights, the camera and scope ran dew free. It was a delight to see the dew controllers inside the camera and on the scope perform very well.

I have a bit to learn about keeping bright stars like Antares under control, and, I have a faint suspicion that several of the images may have been taken with the focus mask in place. Rather than discard them, I am prepared to put up with those big spikes emanating from Antares. But there is room for improvement.
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Last edited by rcheshire; 24-03-2015 at 09:17 AM.
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Old 24-03-2015, 09:32 AM
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rustigsmed (Russell)
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hi Rowland,
nice one - I love this area of the sky. think i'll have a crack at with my camera piggybacked on the scope this season. I prefer the first version but perhaps something in the middle?
the camera mod sounds interesting - good to hear the gear was running well.
cheers
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Old 24-03-2015, 10:22 AM
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rcheshire (Rowland)
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A calibrated monitor would make a difference. The laptop screen is not colour reliable. I agree somewhere in between.
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Old 24-03-2015, 10:24 AM
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Nice work Rowland.

I prefer the punch and contrast in the first version. Would love to shoot that region as well but my rig is too long and camera FOV too tight.

I think you should be pleased with that result
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Old 24-03-2015, 10:55 AM
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Well done Rowland, an excellent image.
I definitely prefer the first version Rowland, a lot "punchier".
Are you able to mask Antares a bit more to see if that can make any difference?
Bo
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Old 24-03-2015, 11:32 AM
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lovely work Rowland. Your ongoing work on this area of the sky has been inspiring me to spend some quality time there once the obs gets up and running.

Great to see your gear working so well too.

niko
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Old 24-03-2015, 12:01 PM
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That's pretty cool. Jealous of your skies. Looks like all had a ball and the weather was on in the party. Good stuff.
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Old 24-03-2015, 01:40 PM
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I like it too Rowland. First one is my fave.
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Old 24-03-2015, 03:34 PM
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Very nice indeed; I also prefer the first one.
raymo
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Old 24-03-2015, 03:43 PM
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Nice one Rowland how long were the subs and how many lights did you gather?
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Old 24-03-2015, 04:07 PM
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Very nice, Rowland! I'd love to image this area one day with a widefield rig.
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Old 24-03-2015, 07:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rustigsmed View Post
hi Rowland,
nice one - I love this area of the sky. think i'll have a crack at with my camera piggybacked on the scope this season. I prefer the first version but perhaps something in the middle?
the camera mod sounds interesting - good to hear the gear was running well.
cheers
Thanks Russell. It was an image of Rho Oph on IIS that got me into AP. I look forward to it every year.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01 View Post
Nice work Rowland.

I prefer the punch and contrast in the first version. Would love to shoot that region as well but my rig is too long and camera FOV too tight.

I think you should be pleased with that result
Thanks Andy. It is well worth the effort.

Quote:
Originally Posted by traveller View Post
Well done Rowland, an excellent image.
I definitely prefer the first version Rowland, a lot "punchier".
Are you able to mask Antares a bit more to see if that can make any difference?
Bo
Thanks Bo. A better mask should do it. But the response of the 60CB is quite different to the Canon 200mm. Need to work on acquisition for the future.

Quote:
Originally Posted by niko View Post
lovely work Rowland. Your ongoing work on this area of the sky has been inspiring me to spend some quality time there once the obs gets up and running.

Great to see your gear working so well too.

niko
Thanks Nick. Well worth the effort. The dynamic range and colour is extreme. Quite a learning curve.

Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb View Post
That's pretty cool. Jealous of your skies. Looks like all had a ball and the weather was on in the party. Good stuff.
Thanks Marc. It was a great time. Beautiful skies, but cold with heavy dew.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kosh View Post
I like it too Rowland. First one is my fave.
Thanks Goran. I might have overdone it a bit - always a work in progress.

Quote:
Originally Posted by raymo View Post
Very nice indeed; I also prefer the first one.
raymo
Thanks raymo.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis View Post
Nice one Rowland how long were the subs and how many lights did you gather?
Thanks Dunk. Subs 180 and 150 seconds, about half and half, 35 in total, playing around with exposure times as it was the first time I had used the scope.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS View Post
Very nice, Rowland! I'd love to image this area one day with a widefield rig.
Thanks Rick. You will not be disappointed. Very satisfying area to image.
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Old 24-03-2015, 08:14 PM
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Fantastic Rowland! Must be great having your camera working properly with all the cooling. You sure have put a lot of effort into it.

I am trying out a cooler I made for my new Sony A5100, first test was last night. Seems to be working well, lots of fun.

Cheers
Jo
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Old 24-03-2015, 08:28 PM
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rcheshire (Rowland)
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Thanks Jo. It's great to have it all running well. I read your astrobin post about LRGB combination, adding additional luminance to the processed RGB image. It makes a huge difference. I will look for your 'cool' images on astrobin.
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Old 25-03-2015, 05:48 AM
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SimmoW (SIMON)
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Good one Roland! What equipment did you use?

Wasn't the weather and company amazing?
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Old 25-03-2015, 09:11 AM
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rcheshire (Rowland)
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It was a great weekend all round. Some lively discussion about various things.

Camera is a cooled 1000D along with a FS60CB that I was trying out. The mount is an EM200B - unguided.
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Old 27-03-2015, 05:01 AM
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Reworked

Reworked - noise is a little more evident, but the dynamic range is better utilised, I think?
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Old 27-03-2015, 11:57 AM
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Very impressive Rowland! Love the reworked shot. You've really captured a lot there.
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Old 27-03-2015, 01:03 PM
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Quote:
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Reworked - noise is a little more evident, but the dynamic range is better utilised, I think?
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Old 27-03-2015, 03:43 PM
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I've had a few goes at this - the processing will be buried in the StarTools log, somewhere.
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