Antares Rho Ophiuchus

[rcheshire]

Been a long time since posting here. This image of Antares and the Rho Oph complex was acquired with a cooled DSLR.

It has been processed in Pixinsight's BatchPreprocessing script (with a few tweaks) and without further manipulation imported to StarTools for post processing.

I used the RC version of StarTools to take advantage of a number of new features. Primarily, Color constancy and read noise compensation.

The workflow was basic. The image size was first reduced to 50%, near its intended display size. Followed up with Crop, Develop, Wipe, Develop (restretch after gradient removal), HDR, Life (masked to isolate nebulous areas), Color, Noise reduction and Sharpen (wavelets).

From the processing log - color choice

Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [RGB Ratio, CIELab Luminance Retention]

I found these settings produced the look I was after.

Anyway, here 'tis http://www.astrobin.com/full/88324/B/

Looks OK on my tablet. It might look overdone on some monitors. I had access to my laptop only, for processing...

[ourkind]

wow that is stunning Rowland. Beautiful!! :thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Superb!

[Rod771]

Very nice Rowland, well done:thumbsup:

[cazza132]

Very nice work! Love this area of the sky :)

[graham.hobart]

A lovely shot Row!
Nicely done :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Great work Rowland.

Wonderful detail and colours.

[RickS]

Very nice, Rowland. The colour is probably a little OTT for some but not for me :thumbsup:

[traveller]

That's a great image Rowland.
Can you give some details re number of subs and their settings?
Thanks
Bo

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Superb Rowland!:thumbsup:

Love the strong colours.
How are you cooling your camera?

Cheers,

Justin.

[atalas]

Wonderful region of the sky!well done.

[nebulosity.]

Good job Rowland :thumbsup: A brilliant image and well deserved after all the work on the camera.

Cheers
Jo

[allan gould]

Stunning image Rowland. REALLY BEAUTIFUL

[Stevec35]

Very nice image Rowland! I would say that you should keep going with your current processing method because it is obviously working.

Cheers

Steve

[rcheshire]

Thank you all, individually. I am a little suprised by the outcome too, and frankly the response is encouraging.

I thought it might be a little OTT as well, particularly for a conservative forum, but I imagine this region glowing and very rich in colour. The software takes most of the credit.

Bo. (26) x 180second iso800 (not 6 as quoted before). Sky was semi urban/rural. Dithered 15+ pixels, which I find is very beneficial for DSLRs. Calibration was more effective because of the consistency of the cooled frames. Corrected further up the thread - apologies.

Justin. Cooling - this one was camera frame cooling, with linear regulation - mod #4. But I don't recommend it because it is difficult to avoid condensation on a very cold sub frame.

Regulated cold finger cooling produces the most consistent results and is free of internal condensation, with careful design - mod #5. ATM section.

I hope that covers it.

[irwjager]

As I commented elsewhere - this is a expertly processed image and it's hard to believe this is from, essentially, a DSLR that anyone can buy (if, for a moment, we forget the mods and hard work that went into upgrading it :prey2:). These are exciting times for astrophotography!

The color constancy algorithm does wonders here for negating the effect that stretching the image has on the coloring in the image (which alas is still a common issue in many images - colors in deep space don't magically change out there just because you picked a certain exposure time!). It's wonderful to see, for example, M4 carry stars with different colour temperatures, regardless of how close those stars are to the core; if colour was captured by the CCD for something, it is retained and the relative brightness of it is ignored for deciding what color something is (as it is arbitrary).

[LightningNZ]

Screw conservatism, those colours are magnificent!

You processing is clearly spot-on. That's a lovely, natural rendition of an awe-inspiring target. Well done!
-Cam

[blink138]

my goodness rowland!
inspirational for dslr owners, what did you have the camera attached to for that view?
pat

[rcheshire]

Brilliant work, Ivo.


Echo.......... Thanks Cam



Thanks Pat. A Canon 200mm f2.8L II, prime lens. Iris wide open with an aperture mask, made up of an inverted stack of step down rings ~f/6

[DrWho]

I like this image very much :thumbsup:, but what I don’t like is 6x180s :confused2: ……….

[rcheshire]

Thank you good Doctor. You are right not to like that... rest assured it is 26 x 180. 6 x 180 would be a screenful of noise...

[multiweb]

Gorgeous colours and field. Love it. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

The strong colour looks great Rowland, very nice result :thumbsup:

Mike

[astronobob]

Grouse rendition and job well done, stunning resulting view, top show, I like it lots :cool2:

[alpal]

Nice result from a Canon lens.
I love the colours.

[rcheshire]

Thanks, Marc, Mike, Bob and alpal. I will be imaging this area again to see what can be teased out with a DSLR.

[CoolhandJo]

Love this target and this image - Colours great

[rcheshire]

Thanks Paul... it is truly fascinating.

[gvanhau]

Very nice.
At first the dark nebula in the small version didn't attract me so much, but at higher res it looks very well.

[rcheshire]

The higher res is half the normal resolution for speedy processing and display. I should upload a full res version to astrobin, perhaps?