IC2944 Running Chicken now APOD

[Bassnut]

Hi Guys

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140305.html (edit:the link changed, ah well, yesterdays pic already)

The Boks are interesting :).

IC2944 Nebula (http://fredsastro.smugmug.com/Photography/Astrophotography-1/i-BhZGZzg/A) (click for big) in Narrowband Ha SII HA OII mapped as LRGB.

Taken on an RCOS 10" RC Scope at f9, SBIG STXL6303E Camera and PME mount at itelescopes Siding Spring Observatory (http://www.itelescope.net/itelescopenet-south/tag/siding-spring).
Processed with CCDstack, Star Tools and Photoshop.
44 off 3nm Ha subs 40min each bin1. 19 off OIII 3nm subs 40min each bin2. 20 subs SII 3nm 40 min subs each bin. 54 hrs Total.

Cheers and thanks for looking :D.
Fred

[RickS]

Looks great, Fred. Love the details and the colours.

Also really jealous because the weather here in Brisbane has been complete crap for the past few months :mad2:

Cheers,
Rick.

[nebulosity.]

That is quite spectacular :thumbsup: awesome 3D ish ness to it :eyepop:


Jo

[h0ughy]

I love it and it even has stars!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DJT]

:eyepop:

[RobF]

Gosh that's 3D looking Fred. Those bok globs seem to be floating right there in front of you, ready to condense and explode :eyepop:

[John Hothersall]

That is just a glorious sight processed to give wonderful depth.

JohnH.

[gregbradley]

A remarkable image Fred. Perhaps your best?

That object to the left of the Bok looks like a dog with a bone. Maybe we should call it the "dog with a bone nebula". That's got a down home Aussie flavour to it.

Very Hubblesque.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

Awesome work Fred!! :eyepop: Definitely one worth crowing over mate!
And 54 hours?! :eyepop: That's nowhere near enough - show a bit more commitment man! :P

Cheers, Marcus

[Peter.M]

I particularly like the purple hues

[DavidU]

That's a ripper Fred :thumbsup:

[Rod771]

Well, I'm just on the IPad (original) and this image looks amazing. Great colours and remarkable depth. Look forward to checking it out on the PC tomorrow.

Well done Fred:thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Fantastic. Love the three-dimensionality.

Well done Fred :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Fred,
Fantastic picture - it should be presented for an APOD.

I looked at the original size:

http://fredsastro.smugmug.com/Photography/Astrophotography-1/i-BhZGZzg/O

I would have left a bit of noise in it but maybe you
had so much data that it really is noise free?


cheers
Allan

[Spookyer]

Looks like a work of art!

[Astro_Bot]

Wonderful picture, Fred. I thought you'd missed a decimal point when you said "54" hours, but you weren't kidding! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

I think you have produced an excellent and very appealing colour scheme on this one Fred. The detail and grandeur of the image is very apparent and has a nice 3D feel ...I think this is probably the best of your mega hour close ups of late :thumbsup:

My only sliiiight quibble is that the stars lack some intensity and look a little dull, I think the iamge would pack (even) more punch if the stars were intense points...Have to say though, and particularly viewed at X3-Large size it looks bloody fantastic mate :thumbsup:

Oh and as Marcus says...why'd ya stop at just 54hrs :shrug: :screwy: :lol:

Mike

[Andy01]

Fantastic image, looks like a scene from Avatar!
Just stunning, well done! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[niharika]

That's just too good for me Fred :)

[dvj]

Apod!

[Bassnut]

Thanks for the nice comments guys, much appreciated.
I isolated the stars a bit this time, and yes they lost a bit of pop unforch.
I did more than 54hrs, but that kind of time allows deleting dodgy subs which is also a luxury ;-).

APODs are pretty extreme these days, gunna have to crank it up to try that again.

[alpal]

Yes - did you remove stars in Photoshop using "fill" & "content aware" &
then paste an earlier version of the stars back in?
There seems to be a signature of stars processed that way
& yet not fully put back.

[multiweb]

Corker shot. Beautiful colors and details. :thumbsup:

[Bassnut]

I just had another starless layer I sharpened on. I think the blend between stared and starless versions was wrong. Unforch I flattened before saving the PSD file, so im stuck fixing it without starting from scratch.

[alpal]

Yes - I compared it with another pic on the web
& there are actually missing stars with white rings around them.
Some quite bright stars have almost disappeared.
Here is one of them & the picture is enlarged.

See attached pic.

[MrB]

Hi Fred, I really love the image, wish I could produce something so stunning.
Please don't think I'm being picky(you've already mentioned reason above) but while looking at the full-size last night I noticed some phantom diffraction spikes and wondered where the star had gone :eyepop:

[SkyViking]

That's absolutely gorgeous Fred, the colours are really intense and the overall level of detail is great. Those globules look incredible floating in front of the nebula. Certainly not bad for a mere 54 hours ;):lol:

I'd have to agree with the others re the stars though, seems the processing took its toll on them. A pity you don't have the psd file as you say, it would probably have been an easy fix. But you can perhaps isolate the stars from a stretched version of the raw FITS and blend them in to taste.

Awesome work, I reckon it's probably your best image to date.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[alpal]

You're right,
How could such a bright star be missing?
It has left it's diffraction spikes behind.
If you go - in Photoshop:
select color range, highlights,
it would pick up that star easily for a copy & paste.

The data is so good that if re-processed it's worth an APOD.
The colours & fine detail is astonishing - it's just those stars.

cheers
Allan

[Bassnut]

Oh gaud, that's what 3-cans-of-Guiness processing does :P. I'm not adverse to getting sick of processing troublesome stars and just deleting them, not smart leaving phantom diffraction spikes though :eyepop:. I was tempted at one stage posting starless, wish I had now, but then would've copped another world of grief :lol:. Not really APOD smart processing either :P.

I just run out of patience when it gets to stars, daft really given the time getting the data, not an appropriate use of pristine data you might say :P.

I've got a feeling I need at some stage to repro a few megadata efforts properly and do them justice ;).

[atalas]

Brilliant work Fred!just brilliant!

[strongmanmike]

I dunno Fred, it is a bit hit and miss as far as I can see, usually the APOD image is at least reeeeasonably awesome (and yes, often incredible too) but sometimes they do display quite ordinary efforts and occasionally even some real huh? wha tha? images appear up there :shrug: (not to mention regular repeats). I think they must rush the picks sometimes :)

Mike

[gregbradley]

Fred, do you find blooming an issue with the stars with this setup? I often wonder how a KAF6303e would go on my setup. I suspect it would be great but wonder if the blooming is an issue or more just annoyance. I often have to work on the stars with the Trius anyway.

Greg.

[astronobob]

Beautiful Fred, I so luv the vibrance in this, shows confidance in processing with great signal, awesome work and magic resulting image :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Personnaly I understand about working on the image takes a lot of effort, and thats what im looking at, :cool2: Totally awesome result :eyepop::thumbsup:

[nandopg]

Hi Fred,
That is just a magical and brilliant image. I must thank you for sharing this beauty with us.

Regards,
Fernando

[E_ri_k]

Wow, that's awesome! A lot of time in that one, it's paid off! Stunning :thumbsup:
Erik

[Bassnut]

Thanks again Guys, its certainly a pleasure processing solid noise free data ;-).

Greg I rarely have blooming trouble (with 3nm NB that is) and if so just a bit with 1 or 2 stars even with 40min subs, bin1 or 2 . ETA was a shocker of course even with 20min subs. You would need FAR less time per sub for the same result.

[allan gould]

I missed this one Bert. It's absolutely fabulous with great depth and beautiful colours.
A really masterful image and thanks for posting.
Allan

[TechnoBill]

Beautiful One Fred,
Your images have always insprired me, (and still do even after my long break from Astro). I often seek out your work and StrongmanMike's as the gold standard. :hi:

TechnoBill

[Octane]

Yet another magnificent oil painting, Fred.

Stunning.

H

[LucasB]

The best I have seen of this area! Superb image Fred.:thumbsup:
Lucas

[iceman]

That's quite amazing, Fred. Love it.

It's now IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au).

[multiweb]

Well done Fred. Another one for the cool wall. :thumbsup:

[Shiraz]

:thumbsup: stunning image - excellent in every aspect

[Bassnut]

Thanks Mike im chuffed !!!.

Dunno about gold standard hehe, specially with stars !.

Cool wall oil painting, love it, all I need now is a pool room ;-)

[DrWho]

Amazing image Fred :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Fred

That is a fine bit of photography. However being mainly Ha I cannot identify any part of it with my RGB images of ic2944 (running Chicken). ic2944 I believe is approximately 1.9 degrees square roughly centered on Lambda Centauri. The much smaller chicken body is ic2948 with Lambda Centauri in the top (north) Right corner.

Barry

[atalas]

Well deserved Fred...congrats.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Fred

OK! Ive got it now. I had to rotate your picture 45 degrees CCW to get north up and then everything fell into place. However the picture is definitely ic2948 not ic2944 and leaves the old AAT gif I have for dead. :thumbsup:

Barry

[Bassnut]

Barry. no, no thats not right. proof http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120612.html

[alexch]

What a remarkable image!!!

That's 54 hours used exceptionally well. I can smell a likely APOD here. On the side note I could never see a chicken in IC2944 but now I see three chickens there!

Thanks for a wonderful view.

Alex

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Fred

Yes the name of that area of ic2944 is also refered to as ic2948 so it will always be a contentious issue

I looked at that NASA photo labelled ic2944 and it is almost identical to an old GIF taken by the AAT some years ago but labelled ic2948. Both pictures only show the center portion of the whole ic.

A couple of years ago when we were all trying to image the Running Chicken at Wiruna and no one could see why it was called the Running Chicken I did some research into it and managed to get a composite DSS image from a screen shot. (attached). If you get the FOV to 2 degrees the running chicken ic2944 is quite obvious.

Barry

[atalas]

Congrats on today's APOD Fred....no surprise there!

[Bassnut]

Thanks Louie

I wasnt keen to submit, but given the response here, I thought id give it a shot :P

[strongmanmike]

Nice work Freddo :thumbsup:... who needs intensity in their stars anyway :lol:

I thiiiiiink we may see this image pop up again a few times in various locations over the coming year ;)

Mike

[h0ughy]

there you go he is the APOD http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html for the 5th of March 2014 - well done Fred

[strongmanmike]

aaaah yes, I knew that, hence my post :shrug: :question:

[Peter Ward]

A well deserved APOD. ;)

[Aussie Pete]

Not too shabby Freddo..well done mate..whats next?

I suppose I better give your scope another clean now your famous :P

[gvanhau]

Congratulations !!!!

[Stevec35]

Well done Fred! I always thought Martin's version of a few years back was the signature shot of this region but I think you're now top of the list.

Cheers

Steve

[Bassnut]

Thanks guys. My smugmug site has 56000 hits already!.

Thanks for your efforts up there at itelescopes SSO site Pete, much appreciated, it all works seamlessly for me with your work in the background, sure helps in collecting the hours and producing these kind of results!.

Martin does stars way better than me ;-).

[SkyViking]

Congrats Fred, well deserved indeed! :thumbsup:

[Rod771]

Well done Fred!! Congratulations on the APOD.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[RobF]

Take a bow Sir :bowdown: :cheers:

[batema]

Beautiful image and well done.

[tlgerdes]

Who wrote the text for your APOD, it is very un-fred-ly? It sounds like you know what you are talking about.:P

Congratulations anyway.

[Bassnut]

Thanks Guys.

Trevor. No, I didnt write the text, they did. I still have trouble working out where (or what) the southern cross is.