Olbers Paradox!

[strongmanmike]

Just for fun I enhanced and lifted the contrast of the 6 hrs of Lum data collected for my Southern Virgo Deep Field.

The amount of Galactic Cirrus evident in the frame is quite freaky really - space is definitely not empty!

This would normally be considered an otherwise bland area of sky with a few galaxies scattered about....

Luminance Enhanced (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/149669509/original) comparison (1.8deg X 1.8deg field)

Mike

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Bloody hell!!

There's a lot of stuff out there.
A real eye opener Mike.

Cheers,

Justin.

[sheeny]

Very cool, Mike!

Al.

[strongmanmike]

Obviously the stars are bloated from the high contrast stretching and thus encroach on any Cirrus that may have been near to them but the rest is very real and it is pretty clear to me :shrug: you can see it all in the LRGB, the high contrast stretch just makes it more obvious.

In case you didn't notice it in my album there, the UK Schmidt doesn't lie in this slightly less aggressive stretch comparison (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/149626499/original) :thumbsup:

Mike

[jase]

Taking it to the extreme Mike! Enjoyed the view of integrated flux nebulosity. I must say your calibration flats must be spot on as the field is so well corrected resulting in an evenly illuminated background. Darker skies no doubt help. I like the processing on the original true colour image but showing the heavily stretched inverted version makes me wonder whether you should have got more out of the background on the original. Perhaps the use of inverse masks in photoshop would do it, but not sure without seeing the raw files. Would have made an epic picture as there is something super cool about seeing galaxies nestled amongst IFL. M81 and M82 are great examples of this. In any case, top work mate. More please. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Firstly, good to see you back :)

Cheers, I hear you Jase :thumbsup:... but in this case I wanted to represent the Galactic Cirrus (Integrated flux is some new fangled american word coined very recently for something very well known :rolleyes:) in a realistic way ie it is very faint. The two galaxies are something like 15mag/squ arc sec while the Cirrus is as low as 28mag/squ arc sec, this area of Cirrus is much fainter than the Apus region for example and also the M81 and M82 region, so to display it artificially bright was not what I was after, the enhanced pos and neg versions I have posted provide the indication of its extent, hence why I posted them and I am happy with that :).

Cheers big ears

Mike

[Phil Hart]

I agree with Jase.. your flats must be superb. I can never stretch my shots like that. Nice work.

Phil

[strongmanmike]

She's cool :thumbsup:

Love this age of imaging we are in :)

Mike

[Ross G]

What an extreme view!

A revelation of what's really up there.

I know you said you wanted the "natural" look Mike, but a photo highlighting the Galactic Cirrus would look amazing.


Ross.

[strongmanmike]

Yeh maybe..I'll see :question:

In the meantime I have started the observatory so lets see what having her ready to go each night allows me to do :)

Mike