Antares and companion split asunder!

[Dennis]

Hello,

During one of my recent imaging sessions in testing out the ASI120MM CCD camera, the seeing was very good so I took an AVI of Antares and could easily see the fainter companion on screen once I had adjusted the camera settings.

It wasn’t until I banged the AVI through AutoStakkert and Registax (Wavelets) that I noticed the diffraction rings. After a bit of stretching and Layer Masking in CS6, I was able to tease out the “hidden” data in the image. The image has been up-sampled to better display the separation between the rings.

Antares in Scorpius, Multiple Star System
Magnitude: 1.02
AB: 0.91+5.4 mag, Sep 2.08"

Cheers

Dennis

Equipment details:
Tak Mewlon 180 F12 with Tak x1.6 Extender giving an efl of 3456mm at F19.2

Capture details:
[ASI120MM Camera (ZWO Design)]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=1280x960
Frame Rate (fps)=Maximum
Colour Space / Compression=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Exposure (s)=0.010594
Brightness=0
Gamma=50
Gain=10

[multiweb]

Very cool Dennis. Another successful split. :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Very cool, Dennis!

[Larryp]

Excellent!

[RB]

I choked on my coffee.
You owe me a new ipad mini Dennis !

:lol:

[SkyViking]

Awesome result Dennis! It is such a great pair, also visually :D

[allan gould]

Great catch Dennis - you certainly are showing what that camera can do in the hands of an expert and it's good to see something out of the usual.
Allan

[jjjnettie]

Nailed well and truly. :) Fab work Dennis.

[Osirisra]

Epically awesome capture!

[strongmanmike]

Well done Dennis, that's a big gap for just 2" :thumbsup:

Mike

[jase]

Masterful work Dennis. Chasing such obscurities takes patience and dedication. Tip of the hat to you sir. Thanks for sharing.

[Greg Bock]

Hey Dennis,
great job, and really good to see something different.
I eyed this pair visually once years ago at Leyburn and almost fell off my chair onto the frosty grass when i saw it.

[Dennis]

Thanks Marc!


Thank you Rick!


Thanks Laurie!


Thanks RB and whoops, sorry for the coffee spray – hope the iPad mini scrubs up like new!:)


Thanks Rolf!


Thank you Allan, for all your work, advice and examples with this camera – it made the purchasing decision that much easier!:thumbsup:


Thank you Jeanette!


Thanks Ken!


Thanks Mike – I once images a double star at 1.7” separation so it’s not my best effort!;)


Thank you Jase, nice to hear from you and hope you are well.:)


Thanks Greg! Are you sure that wasn’t the Chardonnay?

Cheers

Dennis

[John Hothersall]

Love this proper imaging with a challenging object, just showing of your collimation skills with the rings and it somehow adds to the result. Very close separation indeed.

John.

[Dennis]

Thanks John.:)

Although the typical Forum reader will already know this due to the resolved stellar points, this is the in-focus image and not a defocused “either side of focus” image used at the start of a typical collimation session. I focused using a Bahtinov Mask.

Cheers

Dennis

[Ross G]

Amazing capture Dennis.

Ross.

[Ric]

That's a nice capture Dennis

Well done. :thumbsup:

[asimov]

Good stuff Dennis. This used to be one of my favourite things to do at one stage. Must try it again soon. :)