Animation of Asteroid Iris and close approach to Sombrero Galaxy, M104

[Dennis]

Hello,

Here is an animated movie sequence of the minor planet 7 Iris approaching the spectacular Sombrero galaxy, M104, as recorded from Brisbane on 6th May 2008, between 7:34pm and 10:21pm AEST (GMT+10).

This sequence of 30 individual frames was captured using a Takahashi Mewlon 180 telescope and SBIG ST7E CCD camera with an x0.8 reducer/corrector. Each sub frame was exposed for 5 minutes.

WARNING: File size = 1.7Mb.

Iris and M104 animation

Cheers

Dennis

[skwinty (Steve)]

Hello Dennis
My goodness, seems as if there is no end to your expertise and prowess as an astrophotographer. I find it difficult enough taking a pic of M104, never mind M104 and an asteroid.
Very well done

[allan gould]

Excellent shot and animation. You must be pleased with that

[sheeny (Al)]

Superb as always, Dennis!

I must say it took me a little while to find Iris as the gif was loading... I was looking for a tiny speck moving from trame to frame... I didn't expect it to appear as a monster crossing the screen!

Al.

[davewaldo]

Brilliant! Well done Dennis.

I love this animation, gives me a great sense of distance and 3Dness ()

One of my favourite animations.

Cheers,

Dave.

[matt]

Great work, as usual, Dennis

[Matty P (Matt)]

Great work Dennis as always!

You should be very proud.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

When I looked at the animation I thought this was a hoax - until I checked who posted it. Just the individual frames are amazing, Dennis. Well done!

[Dennis]

Thank you all for your nice words of appreciation. It was at times, a tough project, but one that was rendered less painful by the good hardware and software tools I am fortunate to have at my disposal.

Each 5 minute sub frame was quite noisy, as I was working at F9.6 and I really could have done with 10 minute exposures, but Iris was already beginning to saturate and bloom at 5 mins, so I couldn’t go longer; nor was I certain that the mount could do so!

For the final stacked “still” frame, I combined the 30 sub-frames using the “Mean” mode, so that the real-time motion trail of Iris was revealed as a continuous line. This final stacked “still” frame has a much better signal to noise ratio (due to the stacking process), and hence can be developed further to reveal the subtle details. At this stage I thought, hmm, this might make a good animation.

So, I generated the animation using a new approach; here is the story:

• 30 sub frames of 5 minutes duration were Dark Frame and Flat Field reduced using MIRA AP with each reduced frame was saved as a FITs file.
• The 30 reduced frames were then “Median” combined in MIRA AP, which resulted in Iris being “deleted” in a final stacked “Median” image, as it did not appear in the same location in each frame.
• The (final) stacked and combined M104 Median image was then DDP processed in Images Plus and a small deconvolution performed in AIP4Win.
• This gave me a nice M104 and background with no Iris, plus 30 individual (5 minute frames) with Iris appearing at different locations along it’s path in each frame.
• Using CS3 I opened the M104 Median image, the combined one which has a much better signal to noise ratio due to stacking.
• Then, in CS3, I opened each individual 5 minute sub frame and added it as a Layer in the (stacked) final image, so the correct position of Iris in the 5 minute sub-frame was registered and Layered into the smoother Median combined image.
• After 30 such (manually tedious operations) I had 30 frames ready to animate.
• I saved these as JPGs and generated an AVI in K3CCDTools.
• I then punched this AVI through an application called “Advance GIF Animator” and voila, the final animated gif appeared!

As Steve has already noted, it looks too clean and clinical; gone are the hot/cold pixels that blink on and off; gone are the slight alignment jitters and gone is the poor signal to noise ratio of each 5 minute sub-frame.

Cheers

Dennis

[Tamtarn]

That is just brilliant Dennis !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The time effort and patience you spend on your outstanding and unusual compositions is inspirational.

[Ric]

A fantastic animation Dennis, a real work of art.

By the looks of it you almost captured an occultation of that faint star by Iris as well. That would been another feather in your cap.

A fine effort.

Cheers

[AlexN]

Awesome!

[RB (Andrew)]

LOL Dennis you should be a postman......... you're always pushing the envelope !

Superb work as usual Sir.

Reading the various techniques you used has left me in awe and reveals the dedicated pre-planning and meticulous work that went into creating such a unique animation.

I was not disappointed when I immediately flicked over to Spaceweather to make sure you were on the front page.

Congratulations once again.

[Dennis]

Thanks Barb and David, Ric, Alex and Andrew, we’ve enjoyed a few nights of clear skies, although somewhat cool in the wee hours!

Ric – when I captured the last 5 min sub-frame, around 10:21pm, Iris had already crossed the Meridian, transiting around 9:30pm. I considered doing a Meridian flip on the German Equatorial Mount but in the end decided that by the time I had done all of this, I would have had a gap in the series, so I didn’t bother.

Its times like this I wish for a fork mount!

Cheers

Dennis

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Great animation Dennis. The M104 background is also very clear. I was wondering why you didn't produce the GIF straight from the photoshop layers?

Peter

[Dennis]

Thanks Peter. Hmm, didn’t know CS3 could do that, so I just used my pre-CS3 workflow and tools. Time to read the manual! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

It's under the Window, Animation palate. Very simple to use.

[Liz]

That's fantastic Dennis, great to see a LARGE Iris moving thru the same view as the Sombrero, many thanks again.

[iceman (Mike)]

Amazing effort, Dennis. I knew you'd produce something great. Never disappoint!

[edwardsdj (Doug)]

Wow!