Homunculus - C8 Alt-Az Lucky Imaging

[michelbach (Brad)]

First post here, hello IIS!

Here is the mysterious stellar eruption that is Homunculus around the Eta Carinae star system. Using my CPC800 (dual fork alt-az C8) at f/10 and ASI290MM, with ASI224MC for colour. I measured an apparent size of ~10x20".

Previously I didn't know this was possible to resolve with amateur gear. A couple months ago after imaging the setting Venus I pointed to Eta Carinae out of curiosity and noticed I was making out the two lobes. Over the last several weeks I tried different techniques and camera settings to try get as much detail as I physically could. I processed this like I would with the planets as that's what I'm most familiar with. Short enough exposures to freeze seeing, but just long enough to not clip the lobes.

A measly 6 minutes of total exposure. Made up from the best 75% of 100ms exposures with a UV/IR cut filter on the 290MM for luminance. I had to make many batch recordings because field rotation was getting nasty. This mega project made me pull the trigger on an EQ6-R

Stacked in AutoStakkert!3 with 3x drizzle. Wavelets in Registax. Lots of stretching and love in Photoshop 2020.

[Retrograde (Pete)]

That is very cool.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

I reckon that's brilliant. Good on lucky imaging! Should be over in the deep space forum

And welcome to the IIS forum

[xelasnave]

Welcome Brad.
That is really something to be proud of..great effort.
Alex

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's an awesome shot Brad.

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Excellent work- very scientific and great result.
Anth

[Atmos (Colin)]

Very nice result!
I attempted this about a month ago and didn’t get this level of detail, your seeing must have been pretty good at the time! It’s not easy to get that detail level.

[xelasnave]

Brad I see you have Photo Shop so I would like to suggest you try the "burn" tool which darkens and the "dodge" tool which lightens..set the opacity very low with each but I feel careful use of these will bring out more detail as you can lighten or darken specific regions...
Alex

[RyanJones]

Welcome Brad,

What a fantastic effort. Well done !

[michelbach (Brad)]

Thanks for your kind words everyone

Originally Posted by Atmos

Very nice result!
I attempted this about a month ago and didn’t get this level of detail, your seeing must have been pretty good at the time! It’s not easy to get that detail level.

Thanks! I imaged only when it was at the highest point in the sky, and I lucked out on good seeing on my third imaging attempt! (Is it luck at that point or trial and error)

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Brad I see you have Photo Shop so I would like to suggest you try the "burn" tool which darkens and the "dodge" tool which lightens..set the opacity very low with each but I feel careful use of these will bring out more detail as you can lighten or darken specific regions...

I tried a similar effect of lightening and darkening using Photoshop's High Pass filter. Applied to a layer as Overlay, then changing that combined layer's blending mode to Lighten or Darken. Both are powerful tools for sure

[AnakChan (Sean)]

An absolutely fantastic!! This has got to be the best Homunculus shot I’ve seen with a humble scope!!

[redbeard (Damien)]

Originally Posted by AnakChan

An absolutely fantastic!! This has got to be the best Homunculus shot I’ve seen with a humble scope!!

Ditto, I totally agree, just what they said, awesome shot!

[xelasnave]

And real sorry Brad I overlooked saying that your image is fantastic.
Alex

[LostInSp_ce]

Wow! Awesome work on a tough target.

[AnakChan (Sean)]

I considered trying to replicate Brad’s awesome work but it wouldn’t work with my sensor as it’d produce way too many large files. I need a smalle a small sensor!

[michelbach (Brad)]

Thanks everyone!!

Originally Posted by AnakChan

I considered trying to replicate Brad’s awesome work but it wouldn’t work with my sensor as it’d produce way too many large files. I need a smalle a small sensor!

I actually captured this with a Region Of Interest crop of 640x480. I batch recorded at 2 minutes to reduce field rotation, each 2 min RAW16 file was ~700MB. So all up for L filter about 3 GB before sorting them through lucky imaging programs