Coal Sack Mosaic

[avandonk]

Medium image here 3MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2013_05/COALSACK3k.jpg


Gradients are a pain with dim areas.

Bert

[Ric]

Lovely work Bert

So clear and crisp.

[jase]

Dark and sinister nebulosity, Bert! The mosaic is looking fantastic. Such a large FoV. Watch your clipping in the shadows.

I enjoyed seeing the bright knots of hydrogen. On the outskirts of the coal sack is actually a very large, yet faint band of hydrogen which few images pick up. It really makes me wonder what could be behind all that dust and gas. You can clearly see it in Galaxy-map's Milky Way explorer [MWE] (http://galaxymap.org/mwe/mwe.php). You really are pushing out many images of late. Productive imaging. Well done!

[avandonk]

Do you mean this bit Jase?

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=106185

I am imaging whenever lack of cloud permits. Even with a full Moon I can at least get reasonable 'survey' images with 3nm narrow band. The OIII filter is the only one that the Moon can introduce obvious gradients in the images even far from the Moon's position.

Jase that Galaxy map looks very useful for finding interesting areas not normally imaged by us amateurs. Thanks for the link.

My main objective with this new system is (after mastering it) to get very deep images of dim and rarely imaged/ifever objects. This of course means mosaics for the more extensive ones. All the imaging so far is just practice.

I have finally pinned down my last bit of intermittent flexure and this will soon be fixed. It was only about 0.05 degrees per hour but it makes the stars slightly elliptical. You can see the effect in the LagTrif mosaic.


Bert

[jase]

Yes, I believe thats it Bert. Nicely done. It would be great to see a larger area which includes the Crux as a point of reference. I'd imagine the area would take quite a few mosaic panels however.

Indeed, GalaxyMap or more specifically MWE is an excellent reference tool. I've used it a few times to plan mosaic compositions as the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength really shows some hidden features.

Your set up looks pretty tuned to me. Its producing good quality data which is half the battle. I suspect narrowband will be your niche of true colour given your sky conditions. In addition, it will allow you to easy pick out faint information not regularly seen. Who knows, perhaps there is a southern Soap Bubble nebula out there waiting to be unravelled in lesser known areas. You've certainly got the right imaging rig to search for it. Keep it up.

[alpal]

Another amazing photo Bert -
lots of red areas in there that I haven't seen before.
I'd also like to see a mosaic with part of the Southern cross & maybe the Jewel Box.

cheers
Allan

[Ross G]

Great looking photo Bert.

So much amazing detail again.

Nice composition too.

Ross.