Operation sleep it off.

[Peter.M]

Last night I left my scope outside by itself and went to bed. I don't have automated flipping so I waited till it had crossed the meridian and set it off. This is my result from adding another 10 hours to my helix image. It is 23.5 hours of helix nebula in half hour subs, I think I will turn my attention to some O3 now.

I hope you like it, I have definitely noticed some difference between 10 and 20 hours of exposure.

I think it is modestly stretched to make sure there is no noise showing. I will probably give it a belting tonight when I get home from work to see whats there.

Large : http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/89958b34-f3b8-4b8c-a97f-3f2b5c568d1c_hd.jpg

[stevous67]

Cool!

Steve

[Larryp]

You've certainly picked up heaps of faint nebulosity there, Peter-great image!

[RickS]

Nice work, Peter. I have spent quite a few nights doing narrowband on the Helix lately and those faint extensions are a challenge!

[gregbradley]

Good work Peter. Great to see some magadata imaging going on. Its definitely the way to go and the results speak for themselves.

Greg.

[naskies]

That's looking quite nice, Peter. I can see a lot of very faint nebulosity coming through in the background. Look forward to seeing Ha/OIII mix.

[jase]

Looking great Peter. The shockwave bow to the 8 o'clock position is a good sign you're going deep. Dare I say it you could go deeper to pick up the jets at the 2 o'clock position. Perhaps they are already present in the data, just need to nurtured out with selective processing. This is a cracking start in what I suspect will be a splendid image. Looking forward to seeing updates as you progress. Well done.

[strongmanmike]

A meagre 23 hrs, bah piece of cake, walk in the park :lol: well done, looks great :thumbsup:

Ah sign... the days of marathon 2hr eye guided photos are long gone....

:)

Mike

[Peter.M]

Thanks Steve



Cheers Larry :thumbsup:



Thanks Rick, I agree. I think the only thing working against me now is my image scale and the aperture of my scope. Greg had an interesting idea to bin my images for the outer halo but I think that for now this will do me.



Thankyou Greg, It takes alot out of you setting up every night packing in and going to work tired. But getting pleasing results makes it all worth it.



This version is definitely conservative, there is more there but I wanted to go for the ultra smooth look first. I have 8 hours of O3 data to play with now, in 2 nights I got 10 hours of ha and 8 hours of o3 not bad going when the weathers good!



Thankyou Jase, I have always been fond of this object and hope to do it justice in my bi colour image. I am not sure if I will get the full shockwave out of the data, but I will try as they are interesting.


Thanks Mike, Im sure we have shared the pain of setting up every night. You have a few years on me so I guess I can forgive the dome! Boy am I glad hand guiding is dead and gone, else I would need to have had a refractor! bugger contorting to the OAG position on my scope.

Thanks for all the replies, as I said I got 8 hours of O3 last night and will be fumbling my way through making a bi-colour image from the 2 data sets.

[LewisM]

REALLY sharp image there Peter. Goes to show aperture isn't everything :)

[Peter.M]

Thanks Lewis. The little Newtonian does well for its size!

I am putting together some colour versions, the first of which is not complete but a taste of which is below. It is more traditional RGB colours made from the O3 and HA. I will ofcourse do a version in the iconic hubble blue and orange at some point too as well as make larger versions available.

[RickS]

Very nice, Peter!

I have about 14 hours of Ha and 9 hours of OIII so far at f/9. I would like to get a fair bit more data but I'm not sure the weather is going to continue to cooperate. I only have a window of a few hours each night when the Helix is visible between trees in the East and my roof in the West.

[Paul Haese]

Looking good Pete. Lots of detail present and the colour version looks good too.

Looking forward to the bicolour version.

[jjjnettie]

:) Looking very good.

[RobF]

Great going Peter. Coming together very nicely

[Ross G]

Looks great Peter.

So much detail.


Ross.

[Peter.M]

Ahh yes It would take a long time at F9, however the details would be amazing. I love the look of this image with a large long FL scope.



I will get right on it! Thanks Paul, getting there. I am loving working with so much data, it makes processing so much easier.


Thanks!! :thumbsup:



Thanks Rob, its been a long road to get to where I am now!



Thanks Ross, the HA is quite detailed. The struggle now is to blend the O3 in such a way that it shows some of the cool spikes.

[multiweb]

That's a really nice Helix, Peter. Quit deep and detailed. :thumbsup:

[Peter.M]

And my final piece of the puzzle the infamous hubble image!

Larger here
http://www.astrobin.com/full/55614/?mod=none

[RickS]

Very nice, Peter!

[naskies]

Very nice, Peter. Lots of faint nebulosity :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Nice Bi-colour Pete. I reckon you might want another 10 hours of so yet. Still some of that pesky noise in the background. The outer shells are well seen and that is great for the might little 6".

Welcome to mega data collection. Hope to catch up soon.

[Peter.M]

I wasn't satisfied with my colour image, it was far too noisy and the colours didn't sit well with me. So I started again and I am far happier with the result, the colours might need a little more work but the noise is far better.

Large
http://www.astrobin.com/full/56049/?mod=none

[Paul Haese]

Looks good Pete. Nice control over the noise. Dealers choice on the colour.