Rho Ophiucus Test Mosaic

[avandonk]

Now I have managed to produce very accurate flats I had a go a this data to see what I would get.

Large image 15MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2014_06/RhoO_Ant_M.jpg


The reflection 'ring' due to Antares can be eliminated by putting Antares on the optic axis. That way the 'ring' is focused on the position of Antares.

Left panel 8x8 min for each of RGB. Right panel 8x6 min for each of RGB.
All processing with PixInsight.

I produced the flats with a cloudy night sky backlit by a Gibbous Moon. I tracked the scope about 90 deg behind the Moon. The sky looked visually a very even white with no structure. At last I have a use for cloudy skies with near full Moon!

The exposures for the flats were 6 min at -35C which gave an ADU reading of 26,000. To produce a Master Flat I corrected 16 exposures for darks with bias. Used PI to average stack them equalising fluxes.

My system is too fast for twilight flats for RGB as I have an iris type shutter which produces artefacts below about 5 sec exposure.

I tried diffusers which produced artefacts due to too much off axis light reflecting inside the optic. This was a problem even with NB filters.

Bert

Astrograph is an Officina Stellare RH200 which has a focal length of 600mm and is F3. Clear aperture is 200mm.
FLI Atlas Focuser.
FLI ten position filter wheel CFW-3-10 with 50mm square filters.
Astrodon E series LRGB and HA, NII, SII and OIII 3nm NB filters. Also a continuum filter 5nm.
Camera is a FLI PL16803 which has a sensor size 36.8 X 36.8 mm.
The FoV of this system is 3.5 X 3.5 degrees.
Mount is a Software Bisque PMX.

[IanP]

Bert, that looks incredibly amazing .. :thumbsup:
What is your optical train? :question:

[h0ughy]

my goodness that's dusty - deep and worthy to keep

[DavidU]

My goodness that's good. I can't wait for the finished image.
Nice one Bert.

[batema]

Stunning.

[multiweb]

Cool field. Very deep. :thumbsup:

[dvj]

The treatment to the dark nebulae is amazing.

[gvanhau]

Very nice looking so far.

Interesting how you did the flats.

The current pannels are not aligned, so I supose your are planing a few more?

Geert

[clive milne]

That is a credit to your persistence in the face of adversity Bert.

The work you have done to make it sing is not trivial.

Well done.

[avandonk]

I put details in the OP. Below is a picture of the image train with camera stabilisation frame.

Bert

[Bassnut]

Very smooth indeed, most excellent.

[cometcatcher]

That will turn out to be the best Antares region I've ever seen.

[alpal]

Very nice Bert,
I hope you don't mind? -
I boosted the colour in LAB mode as per Louie's video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE2GS_87Ct8

Do you think this looks better?

cheers
Allan

[rcheshire]

That is superb, Bert. Just beautiful.

[avandonk]

I do not mind at all. I wish I had all the knowledge! It certainly does look better.

Allan you will do better with the 16 bit version here 170MB


http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2014_06/MergeMosaic_P1_P2.zip

The data had AWT applied at the unstretched 32 bit level.

This data has been optimally stretched in PI and has had HDRMT applied at the 32 bit level.

Look forward to see what anyone can produce with this data. I have no idea what the 'correct' colours are.

Bert

[alpal]

Thanks Bert,
I think your processing was excellent - I just wondered
what it would look like with a LAB colour boost - which
does so without increasing the intensity.
That's why I posted the LAB result.
I'll let others have a go at the full file if they want.


cheers
Allan

[Elio]

Hope you enjoy my processing, just one hour, your data are a dream for me :eyepop:

I don't know if my colors are right, I love this area and I never had a dark sky to keep similar... I had much pleasure trying to process ;)

http://astrob.in/full/102417/0/

and a much saturated version

http://astrob.in/full/102417/B/

uploaded in my "working" area, not public, but if you agree I 'd like make it public in a click and show your stunning image to all, I think it could become an APOD :D

:hi:

[avandonk]

Elio you are quite welcome to make your very nice versions public. All I ask is a simple acknowledgement. 'Data from Bert' and maybe a link is fine.

The whole point of astrophotography is to show many others our images. These images are not much use in a dark drawer.

I am still finding out what this system is really capable of. A major part of the problem was my processing. Learning how to use PixInsight has made a huge difference. The DBE module almost completely eliminates gradients/light pollution with very accurate flats. This saves me from moving to a dark sky site for now. Still have a long way to go.

Putting up full resolution sixteen bit data gives me feedback from others what is 'hidden' in the data to my limited abilities.

Weather permitting I will collect more data of this region. At Melbourne's latitude Rho O passes close to overhead at the zenith see pic below.

Bert

[alpal]

Nice processing Elio - I prefer the more saturated version.

It's very kind of Bert to make his data available.

cheers
Allan

[Elio]

Bert I'd never asked before similar things, really, but this is the best image I ever seen of that region, and I like it very much.

Have you seen the links I posted? In the watermark I wrote your nik & name, but I don't know your real complete name and don't know the link to your website.

Please give me more info, the image is your and I have done a little bit of processing as I said, data are gorgeous and awesome!


:thumbsup:

I'm very interested in your scope, that seems powerfull, but your sampling (imho) is too high... the 16k camera is a dream machine, btw I like my poor cooled Eos 60D and its small pixels, and I'm very curious to try it on RH200 :)
What about collimating it? trouble?


I'm not so able as expert, just 3 years of studing and tries on this difficult hobby! Still have a long way to go, me too :)

I don't use PI but Iris for preprocessing and CS5 to enhance and improve, Astroart5 for tad of decon (ME or RL) and DBE with the old PixinsightLE if gradient or bad flat.



:thanx: I stay tuned!

Cheers, Elio

[Elio]

Thanks Allan, me too, colors are explosive :)

and thanks again to Bert for his kindness :thumbsup:

[avandonk]

Just link to this thread Elio. I do not bother with a web site.

I thought very carefully about all aspects when putting together this dream system.

In all of science there is only one dogma. Signal to noise is the only criteria to judge the quality of ANY data.

I went for the far superior S/N and well depth of the PL16803.

The RH200 has far better resolution than the 3.08" per pixel of the PL16803.

This can be recovered with dithering and upsizing before stacking. PI has just released a drizzle module that does the same thing but is more mathematically robust or correct.


For faint nebulae especially in NB better resolution is meaningless if the signal is below the total noise of the system.


If you can see faint dust with texture and colour variation and resolved to the core globular clusters in the same image then the signal to noise ratio is very high. True depiction of the full dynamic range of the target object is then also achieved.


Bert

[Elio]

Ok!



Sure, you are right, but I can't spend 10k euros for a ccd, I'd settle for the RH200 :lol:

[alpal]

Yes - I especially like the yellow.