Its been a while

[Peter.M]

Hey guys and gals,

It has been a while since I have been able to get outside and do some imaging. I get married in just over a week and I have been madly planning that and an upcoming holiday. With most of it completed I had the chance to get out and take some images last night. Here is my rendition of ngc3576 and ngc3603. I have some small problems remaining (bottom right) but at the moment would rather be taking photos than chasing issues. The framing was not what I really wanted either, but for me to change it would have meant rotating the camera and refocusing.

10xHa 3xO3 and 3xS2

Larger HA:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/34935/?mod=none

Larger Colour:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/34937/?mod=none

[Paul Haese]

Nice work Peter, interesting look to this object.

[Larryp]

Great images, Peter! Love the range of colours in the coloured image

[LewisM]

Geez I love how this little 6 incher performs! Stunning result as always.

May I ask how much the Orion mirror cost all up? Been thinking about making a FAST 6" astrograph kind of like yours, when I have time and resources available.

[rmuhlack]

if memory serves, i think peter bought a complete OTA (the VX range) direct from orion optics (with the 1/10PV upgrade), in which case this is the link you want:

http://www.orionoptics.co.uk/VX/vx6.html

(ps you'd probably want to upsize the secondary as well for use as an astrograph - best to check with Peter as to what size he went with)

[rmuhlack]

btw, congratulations Peter on the upcoming wedding, and best wishes to you and your fiancee for the day :)

[Meru]

Great work peter, alot of detail there! I tried this with my RC8 but collimation issues kept things at bay. Im surprised how much data you have with just 3 subs for S3 & OIII, the NB composite looks awesome How long were your exposures? I tried looking it up on astrobin but cant seem to find these pics on your user page

*Edit*: Also whats your processing workflow?

[Peter.M]

Cheers Paul, I have always loved the difference in colour from the two emissions because of their varying distances.


Thanks Larry



Thanks Lewis, I am always really happy to use this little scope.

I too have thought about using a small fast astrograph but I think that it is a fruitless excercise. The faster the scope the larger the secondary needs to be, in my f5 its 63mm. With larger diameter scopes this is insignifigant because it covers a smaller percentage area of the primarys surface.



Thankyou Richard, you were spot on with my scope and I appreciate the well wishes.




Cheers Meru. I love the way this looks with a larger image scale like an RC8. My subs are all 10 minutes but the image is made with the Ha as luminance, I have found that if I push the colour data really hard to get the tones I want it will be terribly noisy. This applies with colour data I have spent 10+ hours on or 30 minutes. I then apply a gaussian blur to the colour with about 2.5 pixels (or more depending on what it looks like). This way the colour data looks very smooth and you can get away with a smaller integration.


That is not to say that I want to take images with such small time. My eventual plan is to sort out some flexture free guiding so that I can do some long exposures with narrowband filters. That way I should be able to get to 10 hours exposure with each filter and stick to a lower amount of subexposures. 10 hours of exposure with 10 minute exposures does not look much different too 3 hours.

[Rigel003]

Really lovely image, Peter. Wedding you say??? I hope you're not thinking of missing a new moon imaging session.

[telecasterguru]

Nicely done.

[Peter.M]

Cheers Frank!



Thanks Graeme, I get hitched on the 16th of March. So that weekend is out, and this weekend im busy on Friday and Saturday nights Sunday is a possibility. Then im going to south east asia for 3 weeks so I will miss another one.

[Ross G]

Great photos Peter.


Ross.

[Meru]

That's a great way to get around lack of data Peter, I never considered that approach! You inspired me to give this object another go, but this time I'll use your technique. Keep up the good work :)