The bottom right is the Prawn nebula. Toward the top left is a quantum superposition of Alvin the Chipmunk, with his two mammalian eyes and cheeky smile, and Jar Jar Binks, with his more reptilian eyes. Joining Alvin and the Prawn is a dark diagonal, reminiscent of the neck of a cobra, or perhaps a dinner shirt ruffle.
Also between Alvin and the Prawn, but above the dark dust lane, is a very beautiful cometary globule of the same general persuasion as the Elephant's Trunk or one of the Pillars of Creation. We will call this one "ET", because of the shape of the head of the trunk. ET seems to have a sharp thorn poking out of his chin, toward bottom right. We've processed the image chiefly with the clarity and naturalness of this thorn in mind.
This area is intriguing in that it is one of the few places where SII is much stronger than OIII. We have rescaled the three channels to have equal average brightness.
In light of gentle advice and encouragement from Strong Mike, this image has not been deconvolved. We have used a very gentle 24% increase in local contrast using wavelet sharpening.
Stars have been whitened and magenta rings subdued, but in order to maintain fidelity, not entirely eliminated.
Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave on MI-760 fork. Acquisition and processing using our own Selene and GoodLook 64.
Other very fine recent versions of almost exactly this field have been taken by Slawomir and Colin.
For comparison, here is a 6 MB mosaic of just Alvin/JarJar and ET taken by the ESO La Silla 2.2 metre scope.
Well....bloody brilliant I recon While I think selectively applied basic sharpening could enhance some of the high signal areas, it is also not imperative to do this either. No probs re the handling of the stars, a perfectly legitimate approach there and not only is the whole image aesthetically pleasing but the colour palette (in fact the whole image) makes perfect sense and shows the distribution of the three wavelengths nicely, just the right amount of saturation too... ie the right balance between science and art to me.
An attractive, believable image of a famous nebula, well done.
Of course if you get the bit to the right of this mosaic now, it will be a nicely balanced image
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 31-07-2017 at 03:18 PM.
Really nice Mike and Trish, puts mine to shame Detail and colour rendition is very pleasing Mine suffered from a severe lack of exposure, especially in SII
That's a stunner, M&T! Nice variation in the colours and the usual great detail.
I always assumed that Alvin was part of the Prawn?
Cheers,
Rick.
Thanks Rick! I think the whole thing all counts as IC 2628, but to us it works much better if they are two separate objects.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vlazg
Stunning M & T, colours are great and the detail is so sharp.
Alvin looks like Aesops greedy fox
Ta, George. We had two greedy foxes skulking together around our front paddock, yesterday. Luckily they were probably looking for mice rather than 450 kg steers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LewisM
HOLY GOODNESS BATMAN!
38 hours...ah but to dream...
Cheers, Lewis. Perchance to dream ... aye, there's the rub.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Well....bloody brilliant I recon While I think selectively applied basic sharpening could enhance some of the high signal areas, it is also not imperative to do this either. No probs re the handling of the stars, a perfectly legitimate approach there and not only is the whole image aesthetically pleasing but the colour palette (in fact the whole image) makes perfect sense and shows the distribution of the three wavelengths nicely, just the right amount of saturation too... ie the right balance between science and art to me.
An attractive, believable image of a famous nebula, well done.
Of course if you get the bit to the right of this mosaic now, it will be a nicely balanced image
Mike
Thanks so much, Mike. The science-art balance does seem important. We are thinking about adding a couple panels on the right, just to get a bit more of the Prawn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Octane
Absolutely beautiful work, guys.
I'd imagine that would look fabulous as a 1:1 canvas (with the stars removed).
H
Thanks Humayun! We can get the H-alpha completely starless without too much of a fight, but the OIII and SII are a menace because they are so faint and the stars so bright.
- - - -
Had 11 mm of rain today. That's 5000 litres in the tank. The biggest previous fall in the past 3 months was 0.7 mm. Yippee!
We can get the H-alpha completely starless without too much of a fight, but the OIII and SII are a menace because they are so faint and the stars so bright.
Really nice Mike and Trish, puts mine to shame Detail and colour rendition is very pleasing Mine suffered from a severe lack of exposure, especially in SII
What is this Selene of which you speak?
Thanks muchly, Colin. Yours is very good.
Selene is custom-written to suit our electronics (boards designed by me and populated by Trish), and further custom-written to suit our Apogee imaging cameras, so it would be useless for anyone else. It controls the scope motors, focusser, dome, three cameras, and filter wheel, and allows us to write complicated scripts to sky map, synch, dither and refocus between frames, change objects, even park and shut down the generator in the morning. It has configurable searchable maps with the more common catalogues, and all our past images embedded, so we can go back to and continue a previous image. It doesn't make a very good coffee though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Octane
It rhymes!
H
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
I agree, some selective sharpening would really make the image pop but overall the palette is good and the whole image looks slick. Well done M&T.
Thanks, Paul. Had a go at doing a bit more regional sharpening, but not sure that we liked the result. Will have another look at it. For what it's worth, we think the ESO shot is overly contrasty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slawomir
Splendid image M&T.
Great detail and well balanced colours - I really like how well you have resolved that tiny GN 16.53.2 reflection nebula.
Love it wholeheartedly
Many thanks, Suavi. Forgot all about that nebula. The little apricot doughnut came up quite nicely. When I first saw it, I thought it was an artifact, but there it was in your image too.
That looks quite awesome Mike....agree with Paul on the sharpening but also understand that's easy said when you haven't worked with the data set yourself.
That looks quite awesome Mike....agree with Paul on the sharpening but also understand that's easy said when you haven't worked with the data set yourself.
Thanks, Louie. Struggling a bit here, trying to find a zone where it's sharp but faithful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Love it, rich deep colours and very vibrant.
Greg.
Thanks, Greg. Much needed encouragement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Late to the party, sorry guys - this looks great!
Pleasing colour palette, good detail and dramatic
I'll echo Mike's comment about balance, and also suggest + some RGB stars
Looks very reptilian, sorry Ja-Ja is now off my radar, (hopefully forever)
Thanks for the thoughts, Andy. We are planning to add another pair of panels on the right. Tonight is sparkling clear, but there's a waxing gibbous moon about. Time for a fire and a good book.
We don't feel that RGB stars make sense in a narrowband image. Now completely starless would make sense.
While I think selectively applied basic sharpening could enhance some of the high signal areas, it is also not imperative to do this either. No probs re the handling of the stars, a perfectly legitimate approach there and not only is the whole image aesthetically pleasing but the colour palette (in fact the whole image) makes perfect sense and shows the distribution of the three wavelengths nicely, just the right amount of saturation too... ie the right balance between science and art to me.
Mine suffered from a severe lack of exposure, especially in SII 
exactly what I was thinking 
