A Speedy Red Cat

[strongmanmike]

This is another mini data image :P this time of the Cats Paw Nebula in Scorpio NGC 6334, done and dusted in less than a night - in bed by 2am :zzz2:...cold night (-3C) and fog came in just as I was finishing the data, so good timing :thumbsup:

The Cats Paw Nebula (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/156413061/original)

A very red nebula, due to significant interstellar reddening caused by intervening Milky Way dust clouds.

Wide Field Version (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/156586669/original)

Mike

[atalas]

Very nice Mike.

[LewisM]

Could be my monitor, but seems very cyan/blue to me Mike.

Otherwise, nice job

[gregbradley]

A lot of nice detail there Mike. That billowing cloud is the best part.

The 694 makes an excellent narrowband camera being so sensitive to Ha and O111. I am surprised also at how quickly you can get a solid Ha image out of it. With your F3.8 it must build up very quickly.

Greg.

[RickS]

Nice Paw, Mike, especially for a quickie. Shows a little of the reflection nebulosity that you don't see in many images...

[cometcatcher]

My cat was looking at it and gave his approval. ;)

[E_ri_k]

Nice one Mike:thumbsup: Lots of cool looking fibre like structures in the bottom left part.

Erik

[SkyViking]

Nice one Mike, with some good resolution too! it's fascinating how the various clouds that make up the Cat's Paw are all vastly different in appearance. Also interesting how this nebula is so predominantly red, ala the nearby Lobster.

Incidentally I've been gathering data on this same target on and off over the last month or so. I still miss the blue channel though but if the clouds clear then I hope to wrap it up and start processing the data.

[Bassnut]

well, foggy, OK. Mini data, mmm, yes. Bit sort of red, and red.

[Paul Haese]

Hmmm. Red yes red. I like the reflection hints too, but it looks slightly out of focus to me.:scared3: How was the seeing? Maybe it was the fog.;)

[strongmanmike]

Thanks for checking it out fellas :thumbsup:

Hey, what can I say, it's essentially a red nebula :thumbsup: along with nearby NGC 6357, so ain't my fault :) With a little more colour data I could perhaps accentuate the small amount of non red that resides in the very centre of the nebula group but...according to ESO, it is a RED NEBULA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6334#mediaviewer/File:Cats-paw-eso.jpg) and according to Monsignor Malin:

"the star-forming nebulae NGC 6334 and 6357 pictured here are buried in the plane of our Galaxy in the direction of Scorpius, and are seen through thick dusty clouds. The dust both scatters and absorbs blue light along our line of sight, giving these nebulae a deep red hue (http://ftp.aao.gov.au/images/captions/uks011.html)"

(just have to Google it) :thumbsup:



Hi Greg, the H694 is a great camera....no darks no flats :lol: And although I am not resigning my life to endless hours of data at all costs :rolleyes:... for sure the AG12 makes my lazy approach meaningful :lol:



Thanks Rolf and although they are welcomed, it is also nice to hear comments other than those just to do with processing preferences :thumbsup: The pair NGC 6334 and 6357 are a classic duo for winter sky imaging...look forward to seeing yours. You may already be doing so but given you will likely not collect as little colour data as I did you shoudl eb able to accentuate the little bit of colour that resides in the central area of the paw :thumbsup:

Mike

[Shiraz]

Very nice return for a night's work.

I think that the colour looks about right - hydrogen emission is predominantly red with a bit of blue, especially through dust.

[strongmanmike]

Monitors, sheesh, like astroimagers...can be finicky :lol:

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Ray, see explanations in reply above :thumbsup:

Really enjoying getting out and doing mini data these days and getting a completed image in one night...just as rewarding and fun as the current mania of mega data :rundog: :lol:

Mike

[Shiraz]

just realised that one of those balls looks a fair bit like Henize70 in the LMC. wonder what the mechanism is that produces this sort of tangled structure. Apologies for posting a (very ordinary) image in your thread - will remove if you object.

[strongmanmike]

No objection at all Ray..are you thinking it looks like the top left or bottom left paw pad..? I'm guessing the lower left jelly fish like pad?...funny, that Henize 70 is pretty red (http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/nebulae-clouds/henize-70/) too :)

Mike

[astronobob]

Great result for micro data Mike - never seen them blues before either, keool, & your always capturing the subtle stuff :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
it looks a bit strange - almost too red yet the stars are mostly all white.
I think it needs some Photoshop cheating to make it look better.
e.g.
selecting stars & increasing their colour in LAB mode yet reducing the colour brightness of the nebula in the other direction.

I know you're too pure of heart to do do that though. :)

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Bob, yes taking a complete LHaRGB image in less than a full night is pure blasphemy I know :eyepop: :lol: There seems to be some colour variation in the centre between the paw pads with the bit of white and blue showing in my shot appearing more obvious in other deeper shots of the area and the main paw pads show some very subtle shadings of orange/red but it is a relatively...red nebula :thumbsup:



Strange huh?...compared to what? Perusing the many variations on the net it doesn't really look strange to me (but then I am strange :lol:), it is a red nebula, arguing the toss about what shade of red is perhaps a little semantic? On my monitor the stars show pretty obvious, although somewhat subtle, colour differences with a lot of yellower fainter stars, I imagine the more distant stars are probably affected by the reddening like the nebula and the result is less blue stars?

Pure of heart, moi? nooooo, I'm a rebel...no darks and no flats remember :P

Mike

[cometcatcher]

Is the lack of need for flats due to the smaller sensor Mike? Would a larger sensor need flats in your system?

[alpal]

Yes Mike - but the nebula is so red that it looks like chocolate box colours &
the stars are bright white with so little colour.
It was only a suggestion.
I reckon it's not about scientific accuracy - it's about art.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Essentially, yes, the chip area is much smaller than the fully illuminated circle of this scope, the fully illuminated circle of the AG12 could handle a larger chip like the 8300 or even the Kodak KAI4022M but would need larger filters to prevent vignetting, the H694 chip is also quite uniformly sensitive across its area, it's a great camera IMO and I am really enjoying using it :thumbsup:.



What? don't you like chocolate :shrug:...mmmmmm chocolate argllll driiibbble (Homer Simpson) :lol:

Fair enough and appreciate your opinion but personal preference also decides which chocolate one chooses too I guess ;) :thumbsup: besides, the stars are far from being only bright white on my monitor, so not sure what is going on there :shrug:

Mike

[Star Catcher]

Lovely image Mike, grabbed in short time. That camera does very well indeed, especially without darks etc. The colour issue is an eternal one, with calibration all over the place for many monitors, not to mention glossy versus matte screens and lighting surrounding the monitors. I'll also throw in varying levels of colour blindness and personal saturation preferences. You can't win :)
Ted

[alpal]

You know something Mike,
I just had another look & I'm starting to like it more & more the way it is.

cheers
Allan

[ReaPerMan]

You are echoing my problems. Whilst it's not an AG12 I have the 12"GSO mated with the ASA Wynne corrector. This gives me a great circle but I'm finding that I'm getting a lot of viginetting on the 11000M chip with the 2" standard filters.

Regards

Paul :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Hi Ted, yes the SXH694 is a beaut little beast, love it :thumbsup:

Ah sigh... correct colours in astroimaging :rolleyes: probably as many interpretations as there are for what's written in the Bible and Quran, depends on how you have been brought up, where you are or how you are feeling when you read them... then after a while you can't see beyond the interpretation you have settled on :lol:...there, how's that for an analogy?

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Yes, very fast scopes need a greater minimum filter size for the same chip size due to the broader light cone entering the image train.

The ASA corrector is excellent but I would suspect the fully illuminated circle of your scope would still be less than the 43mm diagonal of your chip then add the slightly undersized filters due to the broad light cone and you would have significant vignetting...still able to be flat framed out I would expect though...?

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Cool...I think this one is open to interpretation but I recon my reasoning certainly supports a deeper red (aka chocolate) overall view :P

Mike

[ReaPerMan]

Yep I can get rid of most of it with good flats but its a PITA. Still the 11000M has so much real estate that I can usually crop out what I need if necessary! Add to that the odd dead pixel and some line errors and the Sony looks very attractive ;) I initially mated my rig with the QHY10 and that got some good results for a OSC but I would prefer a good mono.

[strongmanmike]

Yes the Sony chips are very clean but the mono's are in the smaller size range but the small pixles give you a good image scale while remaining quite sesitive and of course they can be binned too. Not needing to use callibration frames and only very little or sometimes no noise reduction during post processing makes imaging and processing a bit easier.

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Just by chance I was just trawling the amazing Chart32 teams collection of images and what do you know, they have recently imaged NGC 6334 The Cats Paw in scorpius. The amazing detail from the incredible 1" seeing and a 34" scope that they enjoy aside :eyepop:... I was very happy to see that they came up with exactly the same colour palette (http://www.chart32.de/images/phocagallery/galleries/nebulae/ngc6334-75.jpg) as I did (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/156413061/original) on this nebula, right down to the suble colour variations in each of the main nebula sections and the central subtly "coloured" area ;)...so.. red and red with just a touch of other colour it is I recon :thumbsup:

Mike

[Poita]

I'm running a FSI calibrated monitor here and there is plenty of colour variation in the stars. If you are on a Mac, there is a colour meter built into the OS, it is under Applications/Utilities/DigitalColorMeter.app and you can run over the image with the cursor and see the colour values of the stars in realtime. If they look white, then I would recalibrate your monitor.

Lots of subtle colour in the image too, wish there was a bit more resolution to play with.

With the X-Rite i1 Pro available for as little as $200 or so, and the colormunki even cheaper ($85! http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/X-Rite-ColorMunki-Smile-/231277269031) , there really isn't much excuse not to run calibrated monitors these days.

[alpal]

Yes Mike,
you are proven correct.
The Chilean 32" pic is here:
http://www.chart32.de/images/phocagallery/galleries/nebulae/thumbs/phoca_thumb_l_ngc6334-75.jpg

Actually you have shown more blue in your stars which is a nice touch.
They have a bit more slightly brown coloured reds in some areas &
if anything their reds are a little brighter.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Well, of course :P...can't believe it was questioned so much really :shrug: :lol:...had to show an image from a pro observatory to be convincing...goes to show how unscientific and artistic our amateur pass time has become :) (not that that is totally a bad thing of course)

Mike

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Good quickie Mike!:):thumbsup::thumbsup:

Love the resolution from a 12" newt!

As usual, great image, nice stars and colour.

Cheers,

Justin.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Justin glad you liked it...funny, someone else thought it was out of focus :question: :driving:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Really like this Mike - very "natural" looking. Stars look okay to my eye.

Cheers, Marcus

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Marcus, I was hoping that was how it looked :)

Mike

[Rod771]

Another mini success Mike! Meow! :P Lovely details for a nights run, well done!

Thanks for sharing the Chart 32 image, I asked my wife if we could move to Chile, she said I wouldn't like the drive to work :shrug:

[DJT]

Great image Mike. I like the fine detail and as commented earlier, the variation in the different areas is interesting.

This thread is pretty good as well..picking up some interesting stuff.

Cheers:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Rod, wasn't even a full night, bout half :P

ah yes, sigh, Chile..........:sadeyes:



Good to hear Dave, this place is full of interesting stuff :)

Mike

[multiweb]

Nice close up. I dig the colors. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Marc :) well, red and red it is ;)

Mike

[David Fitz-Henr]

Yep, that's a nice "mini-data" image Mike; nice colour and detail showing here :thumbsup: What length subs do you take?

[strongmanmike]

Hi Dave, thanks mate :thumbsup: I usually use 10min subs for Lum or Ha on most things but this time I only used 5min subs...which makes it super mini data :P

Mike