30 Doradus

Peter Ward · #1 13-11-2018, 11:48 AM

A clear night, thin moon, and colour data from last night allowed me to complete this one.

Reasonably happy with the result, which incorporated some of last year's spider season data.

The link is here

Stonius (Markus) · #2 13-11-2018, 12:03 PM

Wow! What a fantastic image! Nice detail in the nebulosity, and good processing!

The only thing that drew my eye was that the orange stars seemed a little obtrusive to me - maybe a little too saturated to feel real? Bit it's just a niggle.

Fantastic job!

Markus

Atmos (Colin) · #3 13-11-2018, 12:37 PM

Fantastic spider Peter, lovely the detail and resolution! Something I’ve not been able to do with my tiny 5”

Peter Ward · #4 13-11-2018, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atmos

Fantastic spider Peter, lovely the detail and resolution! Something I’ve not been able to do with my tiny 5”

Ta. I recall Al Nagler giving a talk at Sydney Observatory, many, many moons ago.

His take was: objects need the right framing....and there is nothing wrong with a good 5" scope (have a not too shabby 5" myself

) ...you just have to frame the right subject.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonius

Wow! What a fantastic image! Nice detail in the nebulosity, and good processing!

The only thing that drew my eye was that the orange stars seemed a little obtrusive to me - maybe a little too saturated to feel real? Bit it's just a niggle.

Fantastic job!

Markus

Thanks Markus. Yes, I pondered the orange stars..

...but noticed the Chart32 gurus had come up with the same colour, so figured they were on the money.

Stonius (Markus) · #5 13-11-2018, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Thanks Markus. Yes, I pondered the orange stars..

...but noticed the Chart32 gurus had come up with the same colour, so figured they were on the money.

Hell, what do I know - you're working at a level I can only aspire to. That picture still blows my mind. I can't decide whether it's judicious use of wavelets, aperture, or good seeing - or a combination of all three, but whatever it is, you've certainly hit the magic formula.

I hope you have plans to do something with that image, it would certainly look great on a wall somewhere.

Best

Markus

Andy01 (Andy) · #6 13-11-2018, 03:36 PM

Wow! That's bold & beautiful - well done

Surreal looking at the details you have managed to capture - astounding really

JA · #7 13-11-2018, 05:03 PM

Fantastic result Peter. There's a real sense of 3D depth in the image

Best
JA

Peter Ward · #8 13-11-2018, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonius

Hell, what do I know - you're working at a level I can only aspire to. That picture still blows my mind. I can't decide whether it's judicious use of wavelets, aperture, or good seeing - or a combination of all three, but whatever it is, you've certainly hit the magic formula.

I hope you have plans to do something with that image, it would certainly look great on a wall somewhere.

Best

Markus

I take the GIGO (garbage-in-garbage-out) approach to imaging. Without good raw data, you are not going to fix it with heroic image processing.

Alluna's optics are simply remarkable. Zerodur primary with a Strehl of 0.96 and dedicated 4" field corrector. German engineering. Just don't mention the war

.

Same with the PMEII. Like an American muscle car, it has the horsepower to simply and accurately put some serious payload where you want it.

I do not use wavelet sharpening on DSO images. In this case the H-alpha data did get a smidge of high pass filtering, but that was it.

While many shy away from the bamboo-under the fingernails PixInsight interface, I do recommend their image registration and stacking. It's brilliant and now use it almost exclusively.

My basic work flow is:

Obtain quality data. Don't kid yourself that any eggy or slightly out of focus data is OK. Delete it and re-shoot.

Obtain matching darks and flats

Calibrate in MaxImCCD, then batch save.

Register and integrate with Pixinsight

Use PI's intensity transforms or Maxim's DDP

Colour combine with MaxIm CCD and save to 16bit .tiff for touch up in Photoshop.

markas (Mark) · #9 13-11-2018, 05:46 PM

Superb resolution and detail

Mark

Placidus (Mike and Trish) · #10 13-11-2018, 06:34 PM

That's it. That's the one. The fine details in the nebula are superb!

We are yet again devoid of a camera, and passively watching new moon crystal clear windless skies. Your image gives us much vicarious pleasure.

Best,
MnT

FlashDrive (Poppy) · #11 13-11-2018, 06:37 PM

That's got so much detail and colour ...Brilliant

multiweb (Marc) · #12 13-11-2018, 06:39 PM

Terrific result Peter. The colors are gorgeous.

Peter Ward · #13 13-11-2018, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by multiweb

Terrific result Peter. The colors are gorgeous.

Thanks Marc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlashDrive

That's got so much detail and colour ...Brilliant

Quote:

Originally Posted by Placidus

That's it. That's the one. The fine details in the nebula are superb!

We are yet again devoid of a camera, and passively watching new moon crystal clear windless skies. Your image gives us much vicarious pleasure.

Best,
MnT

Much appreciated.

Oh dear...hopefully the camera on its return it will be "Fearless FLI!"

I covet your dark crystal skies....Coastal gloop moving in here now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by markas

Superb resolution and detail

Mark

Quote:

Originally Posted by JA

Fantastic result Peter. There's a real sense of 3D depth in the image

Best
JA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy01

Wow! That's bold & beautiful - well done

Surreal looking at the details you have managed to capture - astounding really

Thanks Guys. While being an "urban imager" has its challenges, you can still occasionally hit a boundary.

Stonius (Markus) · #14 13-11-2018, 08:43 PM

Thanks for the rundown. That's very informative. Interesting you prefer calibration in MaxImCCD. Convenience? Or does it do a better job?

alpal · #15 13-11-2018, 08:56 PM

Hi Peter,
that's so sharp and clear - it's amazing.

cheers
Allan

Peter Ward · #16 13-11-2018, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpal

Hi Peter,
that's so sharp and clear - it's amazing.

cheers
Allan

Thank you indeed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonius

Thanks for the rundown. That's very informative. Interesting you prefer calibration in MaxImCCD. Convenience? Or does it do a better job?

Well, one can only take so much bamboo.

. Suffice to say I’m very familiar with MaxIm. PI may well do a better job...but I suspect pain will need to be suffered to discover just how much better.....

Stonius (Markus) · #17 13-11-2018, 11:05 PM

I know what you mean, I feel the same. But hey, at least pixinsight comes with a free lifetime supply of bamboo. It's platform non-specific, backwards *and forwards compatible and biodegradeable too!

:-)

-Markus

Joshua Bunn (Joshua) · #18 14-11-2018, 02:11 AM

yep, that is a fine image Peter, not only does aperture rule, but also focal length in this case.

Peter Ward · #19 14-11-2018, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joshua Bunn

yep, that is a fine image Peter, not only does aperture rule, but also focal length in this case.

Thanks Josh. Right tool for the job I guess

But, I think the image could do with some Luminance data just to tidy things up a bit....but of course, the moon is now waxing, clouds gathering, plus some rain for good measure

beren · #20 14-11-2018, 11:41 AM

Impressive image Peter congrats, almost 3D like drawing your eye to the centre