IC 2944, The Running Chook, Australia Day 2014

[rat156]

IC 2944, the Running Chook nebula.

Shot in narrowband and I have used the Hubble space telescope palette to map the colours.

Taken over the nights of 25 and 26 January 2014, about 5 hours for the Ha, about 2 hours each for the OIII and SII.

I may be adding to this image over the next couple of days as my field of view doesn't cover the entire nebula.

Larger version here (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.620663011312223.1073741828.6 20654114646446&type=1)

Cheers
Stuart

[gregbradley]

Superb Stuart. I'd love to see a larger image.

Its looking really top class.

Greg.

[rat156]

Hi Greg,

The Facebook link now takes you to my timeline photos, which, when you click on the image in question goes to a higher resolution image.

I'm sure that I had linked from the big image, maybe FB changed the behaviour of the links?? Or maybe I should get off my ar$e and maintain my website?

Cheers
Stu

[Regulus]

That's really nice Stuart.

[SimmoW]

Beautiful shot, nice darker details

[alpal]

What a magnificent shot.
I'd like to see a larger version too 1920 x 1080.

Maybe you have to join Facebook to view it?

[Paul Haese]

Stuart I really like the colour scheme and the field of view. Great stuff.

[Shiraz]

:thumbsup: cracker image Stuart.

[PRejto]

A most attractive image! Great stuff!

Peter

[Ross G]

A very nice photo Stuart,

Great detail and I like the composition.

Ross.

[rat156]

Hmm, I don't know, maybe that's the case. Working on my website now, so won't be long...

Here's (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rat156/12194625603/) a Flickr version.

Hope you can see this one.

Cheers
Stuart

[alistairsam]

Stuart,

That looks stunning. was it taken from suburban skies?
Did you do any sharpening during processing? if that's native, its really impressive.
what was the fwhm? (sorry, obsessed with that at the moment :-))
how did you get the white stars?

Cheers
Alistair

[rat156]

Hi Alistair,

Thanks.

Yes, Werribee.

Yes, I use the PS Smart Sharpen filter, Louie Atalas made some great tutorials on how to get the best from your images (www.atalas.net). That's why I shoot so many hours of Ha data, the deeper the image the more sharpening it can handle without getting too noisy. There is a trade off though, the gains are reduced the longer the exposure time, and with longer subs a lot of things can go wrong. This one was collected mainly as 15 minute subs, I tried a couple of 30 minute subs and there was very little gain between a 30 minute sub and two 15 minute ones. I'll attach the unsharpened median combined Ha image for you (50% reduced in size, 50 quality jpeg).

FWHM of the combined exposure was 3.38 according to CCDStack, individual subs ranged between 2.16 and 2.64. This was a particularly good night for seeing from my place, these numbers are also probably smaller as I was shooting narrowband. The worst one was the 30 minute sub, which had a tracking error in it, at 3.6, including this didn't adversely effect the FWHM and it was hard to throw away 30 minutes of imaging.

White stars are easy, follow this tutorial on narrowband colour processing (http://bf-astro.com/hubblep.htm), this will also give you the gold colour and reduce the violetness of the stars.

Cheers
Stuart

[aljo2345]

Thats just mad! :eyepop:!!! luv it

[multiweb]

Another superb shot. Incredible resolution. :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Very nice indeed Stuart. One of the best NB chickens I've seen.

Cheers

Steve

[Spookyer]

mate, this is great stuff.

Brett

[alpal]

Thanks - it's a great shot - so much detail at the full size.

[Peter Ward]

I really like the tack-like sharpness

Excellent :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Bassnut]

Another beauty, excellent Stuart. Im imaging this at the mo, gaud youve set the bar high, amazing stuff, much work for me now.

[rat156]

Thanks Fred, I'm sure you'll do it justice. What FL are you shooting at?

Cheers
Stu

[rat156]

Thanks Peter,

I don't know why, but I seem to be able to push the data I'm getting from the ASA scope further than I've been able to with any other scope, perhaps it's the f/3.6 allowing me to get more depth to the data before I get bored and move to another target. I'm probably still pushing the data a bit far, but the noise it introduces isn't too bad. I'm also learning heaps about how not to FU the colour data before applying it to the luminance. I have made some horrors lately by pushing the colour that bit too far...

Cheers
Stu

[Bassnut]

2.25m but 10" at f9 :mad2:. I takes me an order of magnitude more exposure time to get near your results. Your a lucky man with f3.5 12" :thumbsup: